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THE  BIRDS*  CHRISTMAS  CAROL.  Illustrated. 
Square  nmo,  boards,  50  cents. 

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LOPE'S ENGLISH  EXPERIENCES.  Illus- 
trated.     i6mo,  $1.00. 

POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  Illustrated. 
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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

Boston  and  New  York. 


, . 


IT   IS    SOME    OF    THE    STUDENTS  "       (Page  71) 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM 


A  STORY  FOR  GIRLS 


BY 


KATE   DOUGLAS   WIGGIN 


What  you  can  do,  or  dream  you  can,  begin  it. 
Boldness  has  genius,  power,  and  magic  in  it." 
Goethe. 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN    AND    COMPANY 

catfje  Iftrtjersi&e  press,  £ambnb0e 

1893 


Copyright,  1893, 
By  KATE  DOUGLAS  WIGGIN. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass,  IT.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE  PAGE 

I.  A  Declaration  op  Independence     .  7 
II.  Forecasting  the  Future         ...      21 
HI.  The  Doctor  gives  Polly  a  Prescrip- 
tion       38 

IV.  The  Boarders  stay,  and  the  Olivers 

go 47 

V.  Told  in  Letters 58 

VI.  Polly  tries  a  Little  Missionary  Work     69 

VII.   "Where  Ignorance  is  Bliss"    .        .         81 

VIII.  Two  Fireside  Chats         ....      94 

IX.  Hard  Times 106 

X.  Edgar  goes  to  Confession      .        .        .117 

XL  The  Lady  in  Black       ....        128 

XLI.  The  Great  Silence 140 

XIII.  A  Garden  Flower,  or  a  Banian-Tree       150 

XIV.  Edgar  discourses  of  Scarlet  Runners    157 
XV.  Ldfe  in  the  Birds'  Nest      .        .        .        166 

XVI.  The  Candle  called  Patience       .        .    178 
XVII.  Polly  launches  her  Shd?s  ...        188 
XVIII.  The  Children's  Hour  :   reported  ln  a 

Letter  by  an  Eye-Witness    .        .    200 


696738 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

"  It  is  some  of  the  students  "  .  Frontispiece 

Mrs.  Oliver  and  PoUy 12 

Polly  tells  the  News 50 

Edgar  helps  Polly  get  Dinner       ....  84 

"  The  lady  in  black  "......  130 

"  She  opened  the  book  and  read  "...  154 

"  Polly  .  .  .  stood  at  the  farther  library  window  "  170 

Telling  the  Lilac-Bush  Story        ....  206 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 


"  Pretty  Polly  Oliver,  my  hope  and  my  fear, 
Pretty  Polly  Oliver,  I  've  loved  you  so  dear  !  " 

Dinah  Maria  Mdlock. 

CHAPTER  I. 

A   DECLARATION    OF   INDEPENDENCE. 

"  I  have  determined  only  one  thing  defi- 
nitely," said  Polly  Oliver ;  "  and  that  is,  the 
boarders  must  go.  Oh,  how  charming  that 
sounds  !  I  've  been  thinking  it  ever  since  I 
was  old  enough  to  think,  but  I  never  cast  it 
in  such  an  attractive,  decisive  form  before. 
4  The  Boarders  Must  Go ! '  To  a  California 
girl  it  is  every  bit  as  inspiring  as  '  The  Chi- 
nese Must  Go.'  If  I  were  n't  obliged  to  set 
the  boarders'  table,  I  'd  work  the  motto  on  a 
banner  this  very  minute,  and  march  up  and 
down  the  plaza  with  it,  followed  by  a  crowd 
of  small  boys  with  toy  drums." 

"  The  Chinese  never  did  go,"  said  Mrs. 
Oliver  suggestively,  from  the  sofa. 


8  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Oh,  that 's  a  trifle  ;  they  had  a  treaty  or 
something,  and  besides,  there  are  so  many 
of  them,  and  they  have  such  an  object  in 
staying." 

"  You  can't  turn  people  out  of  the  house 
on  a  moment's  warning." 

"  Certainly  not.  Give  them  twenty-four 
hours,  if  necessary.  We  can  choose  among 
several  methods  of  getting  rid  of  them.  I 
can  put  up  a  placard  with 


printed  on  it  in  large  letters,  and  then  assem- 
ble them  in  the  banquet-hall  and  make  them 
a  speech." 

"  You  would  insult  them,  "  objected  Mrs. 
Oliver  feebly,  "  and  they  are  perfectly  in- 
nocent." 

"Insult  them?  Oh,  mamma,  how  un- 
worthy of  you  !  I  shall  speak  to  them  firmly 
but  very  gently.  '  Ladies  and  gentlemen,' 
I  shall  begin,  '  you  have  done  your  best  to 
make  palatable  the  class  of  human  beings  to 
which  you  belong,  but  you  have  utterly  failed, 
and  you  must  go !  Board,  if  you  must, 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  but  not  here  !  Sap,  if 
you  must,  the  foundations  of  somebody  else's 
private  paradise,  but  not  ours.     In  the  words 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  9 

of  the  Poe-et,  "  Take  thy  beaks  from  off  our 
door." '  Then  it  will  be  over,  and  they  will 
go  out." 

"  Slink  out,  I  should  say,"  murmured 
Polly's  mother. 

u  Yerj  well,  slink  out,"  replied  Polly  cheer- 
fully. "  I  should  like  to  see  them  slink,  after 
they  Ve  been  rearing  their  crested  heads 
round  our  table  for  generations ;  but  I  think 
you  credit  them  with  a  sensitiveness  they  do 
not,  and  in  the  nature  of  things  cannot, 
possess.  There  is  something  in  the  un- 
natural life  which  hardens  both  the  boarder 
and  those  who  board  her.  However,  I  don't 
insist  on  that  method.  Let  us  try  blood- 
less eviction,  —  set  them  quietly  out  in  the 
street  with  their  trunks  ;  or  strategy,  —  put 
one  of  them  in  bed  and  hang  out  the  small- 
pox flag.  Oh,  I  can  get  rid  of  them  in  a 
week,  if  I  once  set  my  mind  on  it." 

"There  is  no  doubt  of  that,"  said  Mrs. 
Oliver  meekly. 

Polly's  brain  continued  to  teem  with  sin- 
ister ideas. 

"  I  shall  make  Mr.  Talbot's  bed  so  that  the 
clothes  will  come  off  at  the  foot  every  night. 
He  will  remonstrate.  I  shall  tell  him  that 
he  kicks  them  off,  and  intimate  that  his  con- 


10  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

science  troubles  him,  or  he  would  never  be 
so  restless.  He  will  glare.  I  shall  promise 
to  do  better,  yet  the  clothes  will  come  off 
worse  and  worse,  and  at  last,  perfectly  dis- 
heartened, he  will  go.  I  shall  tell  Mr.  Green- 
wood at  the  breakfast-table,  what  I  have  been 
longing  for  months  to  tell  him,  that  we  can 
hear  him  snore,  distinctly,  through  the  par- 
tition. He  will  go.  I  shall  put  cold  milk 
in  Mrs.  Caldwell's  coffee  every  morning.  I 
shall  mean  well,  you  know,  but  I  shall  forget. 
She  will  know  that  I  mean  well,  and  that  it 
is  only  girlish  absent-mindedness,  but  she 
will  not  endure  it  very  long ;  she  will  go. 
And  so,  by  the  exercise  of  a  little  ingenuity, 
they  will  depart  one  by  one,  remarking  that 
Mrs.  Oliver's  boarding-house  is  not  what  it 
used  to  be ;  that  Pauline  is  growing  a  little 
'slack.'" 

"  Polly !  "  and  Mrs.  Oliver  half  rose  from 
the  sofa,  "  I  will  not  allow  you  to  call  this  a 
boarding-house  in  that  tone  of  voice." 

"  A  boarding-house,  as  I  take  it,"  argued 
Polly,  "  is  a  house  where  the  detestable 
human  vipers  known  as  boarders  are  '  taken 
in  and  done  for.'  " 

"  But  we  have  always  prided  ourselves  on 
having  it  exactly  like  a  family,"  said  her 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  11 

mother  plaintively.  "You  know  we  have 
not  omitted  a  single  refinement  of  the  dainti- 
est home-life,  no  matter  at  what  cost  of  labor 
and  thought, " 

"  Certainly,  that 's  the  point,  —  and  there 
.you  are,  a  sofa-invalid,  and  here  am  I  with 
my  disposition  ruined  for  life ;  such  a  wreck 
in  temper  that  I  could  blow  up  the  boarders 
with  dynamite  and  sleep  peacefully  after  it." 

"  Now  be  reasonable,  little  daughter. 
Think  how  kind  and  grateful  the  boarders 
have  been  (at  least  almost  always),  how 
appreciative  of  everything  we  have  done  for 
them." 

"  Of  course  ;  it  is  n't  every  day  they  can 
secure  an  —  an  —  elderly  Juno  like  you  to 
carve  meat  for  them,  or  a  —  well,  just  for 
the  sake  of  completing  the  figure  of  speech 
—  a  blooming  Hebe  like  me  (I  've  always 
wondered  why  it  was  n't  Shehe, !)  to  dispense 
their  tea  and  coffee ;  to  say  nothing  of  broma 
for  Mr.  Talbot,  cocoa  for  Mr.  Greenwood, 
cambric  tea  for  Mrs.  Hastings,  and  hot  water 
for  the  Darlings.  I  have  to  keep  a  schedule, 
and  refer  to  it  three  times  a  day.  This 
alone  shows  that  boarders  are  n't  my  voca- 
tion." 

A  bit  of  conversation  gives  the  clue  to 


12  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

character  so  easily  that  Mrs.  Oliver  and  her 
daughter  need  little  more  description.  You 
can  see  the  pretty,  fragile  mother  resting 
among  her  pillows,  and  I  need  only  tell  you 
that  her  dress  is  always  black,  her  smile 
patient,  her  eyes  full  of  peace,  and  her  hands 
never  idle  save  in  this  one  daily  resting-hour 
prescribed  by  the  determined  Miss  Polly, 
who  mounts  guard  during  the  appointed 
time  like  a  jailer  who  expects  his  prisoner 
to  escape  if  he  removes  his  eagle  eye  for  an 
instant. 

The  aforesaid  impetuous  Miss  Polly  has 
also  told  you  something  of  herself  in  this 
brief  interview.  She  is  evidently  a  person 
who  feels  matters  rather  strongly,  and  who 
is  wont  to  state  them  in  the  strongest  terms 
she  knows.  Every  word  she  utters  shows 
you  that,  young  as  she  looks,  she  is  the  real 
head  of  the  family,  and  that  her  vigorous 
independence  of  thought  and  speech  must 
be  the  result  of  more  care  and  responsibility 
than  ordinarily  fall  to  the  lot  of  a  girl  of 
sixteen. 

Certain  of  her  remarks  must  be  taken 
with  a  grain  of  salt.  Her  assertion  of  will- 
ingness to  blow  up  innocent  boarders  in 
their  beds  would  seem,  for  instance,  to  in- 


MRS.    OLIVER   AND   POLLY 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  13 

dicate  a  vixenish  and  vindictive  sort  of  tem- 
per quite  unwarranted  by  the  circumstances ; 
but  a  glance  at  the  girl  herself  contradicts 
the  thought. 

Item:  A  firm  chin.  She  will  take  her 
own  way  if  she  can  possibly  get  it ;  but  item  : 
a  sweet,  lovable  mouth  framed  in  dimples ;  a 
mouth  that  breaks  into  smiles  at  the  slightest 
provocation,  no  matter  how  dreary  the  out- 
look ;  a  mouth  that  quivers  at  the  first  ten- 
der word,  and  so  the  best  of  all  correctives 
to  the  determined  little  chin  below. 

Item :  A  distinctly  saucy  nose ;  an  ag- 
gressive, impertinent,  spirited  little  nose, 
with  a  few  freckles  on  it ;  a  nose  that  prob- 
ably leads  its  possessor  into  trouble  occasion- 
ally. 

Item  :  Two  bright  eyes,  a  trifle  overproud 
and  willful,  perhaps,  but  candid  and  full  of 
laughter. 

Item :  A  head  of  brilliant,  auburn  hair ; 
lively,  independent,  frisky  hair,  each  glitter- 
ing thread  standing  out  by  itself  and  assert- 
ing its  own  individuality ;  tempestuous  hair 
that  never  "  stays  put ; "  capricious  hair  that 
escapes  hairpins  and  comes  down  unexpect- 
edly ;  hoydenish  hair  that  makes  the  meekest 
hats  look  daring. 


14  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

For  the  rest,  a  firm,  round  figure,  no  an- 
gles, everything,  including  elbows,  in  curves ; 
blooming  cheeks  and  smooth  -  skinned,  ta- 
per-fingered hands  tanned  a  very  honest 
brown,  —  the  hands  of  a  person  who  loves 
beauty. 

Polly  Oliver's  love  of  beautiful  things  was 
a  passion,  and  one  that  had  little  gratifi- 
cation ;  but  luckily,  though  good  music, 
pictures,  china,  furniture,  and  "  purple  and 
fine  linen "  were  all  conspicuous  by  their 
absence,  she  could  feast  without  money  and 
without  price  on  the  changeful  loveliness  of 
the  Santa  Ynez  mountains,  the  sapphire 
tints  of  the  placid  Pacific,  and  the  gorgeous 
splendor  of  the  Californian  wild-flowers,  so 
that  her  sense  of  beauty  never  starved. 

Her  hand  was  visible  in  the  modest  sitting- 
room  where  she  now  sat  with  her  mother; 
for  it  was  pretty  and  homelike,  although  its 
simple  decorations  and  furnishings  had  been 
brought  together  little  by  little  during  a 
period  of  two  years  ;  so  that  the  first  install- 
ments were  all  worn  out,  Polly  was  wont  to 
remark  plaintively,  before  the  last  additions 
made  their  appearance. 

The  straw  matting  had  Japanese  figures 
on  it,  while  a  number  of  rugs  covered  the 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  15 

worn  places,  and  gave  it  an  opulent  look. 
The  table-covers,  curtains,  and  portieres 
were  of  blue  jean  worked  in  outline  embroi- 
dery, and  Mrs.  Oliver's  couch  had  as  many 
pillows  as  that  of  an  oriental  princess ;  for 
Polly's  summers  were  spent  camping  in  a 
canon,  and  she  embroidered  sofa-cushions 
and  draperies  with  frenzy  during  these 
weeks  of  out-of-door  life. 

Upon  the  cottage  piano  was  a  blue  Can- 
ton ginger-jar  filled  with  branches  of  feath- 
ery bamboo  that  spread  its  lace-like  foliage 
far  and  wide  over  the  ceiling  and  walls, 
quite  covering  the  large  spot  where  the  roof 
had  leaked.  Various  stalks  of  tropical- 
looking  palms,  distributed  artistically  about, 
concealed  the  gaping  wounds  in  the  walls, 
inflicted  by  the  Benton  children,  who  had 
once  occupied  this  same  apartment.  Mex- 
ican water -jars,  bearing  peacock  feathers, 
screened  Mr.  Benton's  two  favorite  places 
for  scratching  matches.  The  lounge  was 
the  sort  of  lounge  that  looks  well  only  be- 
tween two  windows,  but  Polly  was  obliged 
to  place  it  across  the  corner  where  she  really 
needed  the  table,  because  in  that  position  it 
shielded  from  the  public  view  the  enormous 
black  spots  on  the  wall  where  Reginald  Ben- 


16  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

ton  had  flung  the  ink-bottle  at  his  angel 
sister  Pansy  Belle. 

Then  there  was  an  umbrella- lamp  bestowed 
by  a  boarder  whom  Mrs.  Oliver  had  nursed 
through  typhoid  fever ;  a  banjo ;  plenty  of 
books  and  magazines ;  and  an  open  fireplace, 
with  a  great  pitcher  of  yellow  wild-flowers 
standing  between  the  old-fashioned  brass 
andirons. 

Little  Miss  Oliver's  attitude  on  the  ques- 
tion of  the  boarders  must  stand  quite  with- 
out justification. 

"  It  is  a  part  of  Polly,"  sighed  her  mother, 
"  and  must  be  borne  with  Christian  forti- 
tude." 

Colonel  Oliver  had  never  fully  recovered 
from  a  wound  received  in  the  last  battle  of 
the  civil  war,  and  when  he  was  laid  to  rest 
in  a  quiet  New  England  churchyard,  so  much 
of  Mrs.  Oliver's  heart  was  buried  with  him 
that  it  was  difficult  to  take  up  the  burden 
of  life  with  any  sort  of  courage.  At  last  her 
delicate  health  prompted  her  to  take  the 
baby  daughter,  born  after  her  husband's 
death,  and  go  to  southern  California,  where 
she  invested  her  small  property  in  a  house 
in  Santa  Barbara.  She  could  not  add  to  her 
income  by   any  occupation    that   kept   her 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  17 

away  from  the  baby  ;  so  the  boarders  fol- 
lowed as  a  matter  of  course  (a  house  being 
suitable  neither  for  food  nor  clothing),  and 
a  constantly  changing  family  of  pleasant 
people  helped  her  to  make  both  ends  meet, 
and  to  educate  the  little  daughter  as  she 
grew  from  babyhood  into  childhood. 

Now,  as  Polly  had  grown  up  among  the 
boarders,  most  of  whom  petted  her,  no  one 
can  account  for  her  slightly  ungrateful  re- 
ception of  their  good-will ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  first  time  she  was  old  enough  to  be 
trusted  at  the  table,  she  grew  very  red  in  the 
face,  slipped  down  from  her  high  chair,  and 
took  her  bowl  of  bread  and  milk  on  to  the 
porch.  She  was  followed  and  gently  rea- 
soned with,  but  her  only  explanation  was 
that  she  did  n't  "  yike  to  eat  wiv  so  many 
peoples."  Persuasion  bore  no  fruit,  and  for 
a  long  time  Miss  Polly  ate  in  solitary  gran- 
deur. Indeed,  the  feeling  increased  rather 
than  diminished,  until  the  child  srrew  old 
enough  to  realize  her  mother's  burden,  when 
with  passionate  and  protecting  love  she  put 
her  strong  young  shoulders  under  the  load 
and  lifted  her  share,  never  so  very  prettily 
or  gracefully,  —  it  is  no  use  trying  to  paint  a 
halo  round  Polly's  head,  —  but  with  a  proud 


18  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  , 

courage  and  a  sort  of  desperate  resolve  to  be 
as  good  as  she  could,  which  was  not  very 
good,  she  would  have  told  you. 

She  would  come  hack  from  the  beautiful 
home  of  her  friend,  Bell  Winship,  and  look 
about  on  her  own  surroundings,  never  with 
scorn,  or  sense  of  bitterness,  —  she  was  too 
sensible  and  sweet-natured  for  that,  —  but 
with  an  inward  rebellion  against  the  existing 
state  of  things,  and  a  secret  determination  to 
create  a  better  one,  if  God  would  only  give 
her  power  and  opportunity.  But  this  pent- 
up  feeling  only  showed  itself  to  her  mother 
in  bursts  of  impulsive  nonsense,  at  which 
Mrs.  Oliver  first  laughed  and  then  sighed. 

"  Oh,  for  a  little,  little  breakfast-table  !  " 
Polly  would  say,  as  she  flung  herself  on  her 
mother's  couch,  and  punched  the  pillows 
desperately.  "  Oh,  for  a  father  to  say 
'  Steak,  Polly  dear  ? '  instead  of  my  asking, 
'  Steakorchop  ?  '  over  and  over  every  morn- 
ing! Oh,  for  a  lovely,  grown-up,  black- 
haired  sister,  who  would  have  hundreds  of 
lovers,  and  let  me  stay  in  the  room  when 
they  called !  Oh,  for  a  tiny  baby  brother, 
fat  and  dimpled,  who  would  crow,  and  spill 
milk  on  the  tablecloth,  and  let  me  sit  on  the 
floor  and  pick  up  the  things  he  threw  down ! 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  19 

But  instead  of  that,  a  new,  big,  strange 
family,  different  people  every  six  months, 
people  who  don't  like  each  other,  and  have 
to  be  seated  at  opposite  ends  of  the  table ; 
ladies  whose  lips  tremble  with  disappoint- 
ment if  they  don't  get  the  second  joint  of 
the  chicken,  and  gentlemen  who  are  sulky  if 
any  one  else  gets  the  liver.  Oh,  mamma,  I 
am  sixteen  now,  and  it  will  soon  be  time  for 
me  to  begin  taking  care  of  you ;  but  I  warn 
you,  I  shall  never  do  it  by  means  of  the 
boarders !  " 

"  Are  you  so  weak  and  proud,  little 
daughter,  as  to  be  ashamed  because  I  have 
taken  care  of  you  these  sixteen  years  '  by 
means  of  the  boarders,'  as  you  say?" 

"  No,  no,  mamma  !  Don't  think  so  badly 
of  me  as  that.  That  feeling  was  outgrown 
long  ago.  Do  I  not  know  that  it  is  just  as 
fine  and  honorable  as  anything  else  in  the 
world,  and  do  I  not  love  and  honor  you  with 
all  my  heart  because  you  do  it  in  so  sweet 
and  dignified  a  way  that  everybody  respects 
you  for  it?  But  it  is  n't  my  vocation.  I 
would  like  to  do  something  different,  some- 
thing wider,  something  lovelier,  if  I  knew 
how,  and  were  ever  good  enough  !  " 

"  It  is  easy  to  '  dream  noble  things,'  dear, 


20  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

but  hard  to  do  them  '  all  day  long.'  My 
own  feeling  is,  if  one  reaches  the  results 
one  is  struggling  for,  and  does  one's  work  as 
well  as  it  lies  in  one  to  do  it,  that  keeping 
boarders  is  as  good  service  as  any  other  bit 
of  the  world's  work.  One  is  not  always 
permitted  to  choose  the  beautiful  or  glorious 
task.  Sometimes  all  one  can  do  is  to 
make  the  humble  action  fine  by  doing  it  '  as 
it  is  done  in  heaven.'  Remember,  '  they  also 
serve  who  only  stand  and  wait.'  " 

"Yes,  mamma,"  said  Polly  meekly;  "but," 
stretching  out  her  young  arms  hopefully  and 
longingly,  "  it  must  be  that  they  also  serve 
who  stand  and  dare,  and  I  'm  going  to  try 
that  first,  —  then  I  '11  wait,  if  God  wants 
me  to." 

"  What  if  God  wants  you  to  wait  first, 
little  daughter  ?  " 

Polly  hid  her  face  in  the  sofa-cushions 
and  did  not  answer. 


CHAPTER  IT. 

FORECASTING   THE   FUTURE. 

Two  of  Mrs.  Oliver's  sitting-room  win- 
dows looked  out  on  the  fig-trees,  and  the 
third  on  a  cosy  piazza-corner  framed  in 
passion-vines,  where  at  the  present  moment 
stood  a  round  table  holding  a  crystal  bowl  of 
Gold  of  Ophir  roses,  a  brown  leather  port- 
folio, and  a  dish  of  apricots.  Against  the 
table  leaned  an  old  Spanish  guitar  with  a 
yellow  ribbon  round  its  neck,  and  across  the 
corner  hung  a  gorgeous  hammock  of  Persian 
colored  threads,  with  two  or  three  pillows  of 
canary-colored  China  silk  in  one  end.  A 
bamboo  lounging-chair  and  a  Shaker  rocker 
completed  the  picture ;  and  the  passer-by 
could  generally  see  Miss  Anita  Ferguson 
reclining  in  the  one,  and  a  young  (but  not 
Wise)  man  from  the  East  in  the  other.  It 
was  not  always  the  same  young  man  any 
more  than  the  decorations  were  always  of 
the  same  color. 

"  That 's  another  of   my  troubles,"   said 


22  FOLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Polly  to  her  friend  Margery  Noble,  pulling 
up  the  window-shade  one  afternoon  and 
pointing  to  the  now  empty  "  cosy  corner." 
"  I  don't  mind  Miss  Ferguson's  sitting  there, 
though  it  used  always  to  be  screened  off  for 
my  doll-house,  and  I  love  it  dearly ;  but  she 
pays  to  sit  there,  and  she  ought  to  do  it; 
besides,  she  looks  prettier  there  than  any 
one  else.  Is  n't  it  lovely  ?  The  other  day 
she  had  pink  oleanders  in  the  bowl,  the 
cushions  turned  the  pink  side  up,  —  you  see 
they  are  canary  and  rose-color,  —  a  pink 
muslin  dress,  and  the  guitar  trimmed  with  a 
fringe  of  narrow  pink  ribbons.  She  was  a 
dream,  Margery !  But  she  does  n't  sit  there 
with  her  young  men  when  I  am  at  school, 
nor  when  I  am  helping  Ah  Foy  in  the  dining- 
room,  nor,  of  course,  when  we  are  at  table. 
She  sits  there  from  four  to  six  in  the  after- 
noon and  in  the  evening,  the  only  times  I 
have  with  mamma  in  this  room.  We  are 
obliged  to  keep  the  window  closed,  lest  we 
should  overhear  the  conversation.  That  is 
tiresome  enough  in  warm  weather.  You  see 
the  other  windows  are  shaded  by  the  fig- 
trees,  so  here  we  sit,  in  Egyptian  darkness, 
mamma  and  I,  during  most  of  the  pleasant 
afternoons.     And  if  anything  ever  came  of 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  23 

it,  we  would  n't  mind,  but  nothing  ever  does. 
There  have  been  so  many  young  men,  —  I 
could  n't  begin  to  count  them,  but  they  have 
worn  out  the  seats  of  four  chairs,  —  and 
why  does  n't  one  of  them  take  her  away  ? 
Then  we  could  have  a  nice,  plain  young  lady 
who  would  sit  quietly  on  the  front  steps  with 
the  old  people,  and  who  would  n't  want  me 
to  carry  messages  for  her  three  times  a  day." 

At  the  present  moment,  however,  Miss 
Anita  Ferguson,  clad  in  a  black  habit,  with 
a  white  rose  in  her  buttonhole,  and  a  neat 
black  derby  with  a  scarf  of  white  crepe  de 
chine  wound  about  it,  had  gone  on  the  mesa 
for  a  horseback  ride,  so  Polly  and  Margery 
had  borrowed  the  cosy  corner  for  a  chat. 

Margery  was  crocheting  a  baby's  afghan, 
and  Polly  was  almost  obscured  by  a  rumpled 
yellow  dress  which  lay  in  her  lap. 

"  You  observe  my  favorite  yellow  gown  ?  " 
she  asked. 

"  Yes,  what  have  you  done  to  it  ?  " 

"  Gin  Sing  picked  blackberries  in  the  col- 
ander. I,  supposing  the  said  colander  to  be 
a  pan  with  the  usual  bottom,  took  it  in  my 
lap  and  held  it  for  an  hour  while  I  sorted 
the  berries.  Result :  a  hideous  stain  a  foot 
and  a  half  in  diameter,  to  say  nothing  of  the 


24  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

circumference.  Mr.  Greenwood  suggested 
oxalic  acid.  I  applied  it,  and  removed  botli 
the  stain  and  the  dress  in  the  following  com- 
plete manner ;  "  and  Polly  put  her  brilliant 
head  through  an  immense  circular  hole  in 
the  front  breadth  of  the  skirt. 

"  It  's  hopeless,  is  n't  it  ?  for  of  course 
a  patch  won't  look  well,"  said  Margery. 

"Hopeless?  Not  a  bit.  You  see  this 
pretty  yellow  and  white  striped  lawn?  I 
have  made  a  long,  narrow  apron  of  it,  and 
ruffled  it  all  round.  I  pin  it  to  my  waist 
thus,  and  the  hole  is  covered.  But  it  looks 
like  an  apron,  and  how  do  I  contrive  to 
throw  the  public  off  the  scent?  I  add  a 
yoke  and  sash  of  the  striped  lawn,  and 
people  see  simply  a  combination-dress.  I 
do  the  designing,  and  my  beloved  little 
mother  there  will  do  the  sewing ;  forgetting 
her  precious  Polly's  carelessness  in  making 
the  hole,  and  remembering  only  her  clever- 
ness in  covering  it." 

"  Capital !  "  said  Margery ;  "  it  will  be 
prettier  than  ever.  Oh  dear!  that  dress 
was  new  when  we  had  our  last  lovely  sum- 
mer in  the  canon.  Shall  we  ever  go  again, 
all  together,  I  wonder  ?  Just  think  how  we 
are  all  scattered,  —  the  Winships  traveling 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  25 

in  Europe  (I  '11  read  you  Bell's  last  letter 
by  and  by)  ;  Geoffrey  Strong  studying  at 
Leipsic ;  Jack  Howard  at  Harvard,  with 
Elsie  and  her  mother  watching  over  him  in 
Cambridge ;  Philip  and  I  on  the  ranch  as 
usual,  and  you  here.  We  are  so  divided 
that  it  does  n't  seem  possible  that  we  can 
ever  have  a  complete  reunion,  does  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Polly,  looking  dreamily  at  the 
humming-birds  hovering  over  the  honey- 
suckle ;  "  and  if  we  should,  everything  would 
be  different.  Bless  dear  old  Bell's  heart ! 
What  a  lovely  summer  she  must  be  having ! 
I  wonder  what  she  will  do." 

"  Do  ?  "  echoed  Margery. 

"  Yes ;  it  always  seemed  to  me  that  Bell 
Winship  would  do  something  in  the  world  ; 
that  she  would  never  go  along  placidly  like 
other  girls,  she  has  so  many  talents." 

"  Yes  ;  but  so  long  as  they  have  plenty  of 
money,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Winship  would  prob- 
ably never  encourage  her  in  doing  anything.*' 

"  It  would  be  all  the  better  if  she  could 
do  something  because  she  loved  it,  and  with 
no  thought  of  earning  a  living  by  it.  Is  n't 
it  odd  that  I  who  most  need  the  talents 
should  have  fewer  than  any  one  of  our  dear 
little  group  ?     Bell  can  write,  sing,  dance, 


26  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

or  do  anything  else,  in  fact ;  Elsie  can  play 
like  an  angel ;  you  can  draw  ;  but  it  seems 
to  me  I  can  do  nothing  well  enough  to  earn 
money  by  it ;  and  that  is  precisely  what  I 
must  do." 

"  You  've  never  had  any  special  instruc- 
tion, Polly  dear,  else  you  could  sing  as  well 
as  Bell,  or  play  as  well  as  Elsie." 

"  Well,  I  must  soon  decide.  Mamma  says 
next  summer,  when  I  am  seventeen,  she  will 
try  to  spend  a  year  in  San  Francisco  and 
let  me  study  regularly  for  some  profession. 
The  question  is,  what  ?  —  or  whether  to  do 
something  without  study.  I  read  in  a  maga- 
zine the  other  day  that  there  are  now  three 
hundred  or  three  thousand,  I  can't  remem- 
ber which,  vocations  open  to  women.  If  it 
were  even  three  hundred  I  could  certainly 
choose  one  to  my  liking,  and  there  would  be 
two  hundred  and  ninety-nine  left  over  for 
the  other  girls.  Mrs.  Weeks  is  trying  to 
raise  silkworms.  That  would  be  rather  nice, 
because  the  worms  would  be  silent  partners 
in  the  business  and  do  most  of  the  work." 

"  But  you  want  something  without  any 
risks,  you  know,"  said  Margery  sagely. 
"You  would  have  to  buy  ground  for  the 
silkworms,  and  set  out  the  mulberries,  and 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  27 

then  a  swarm  of  horrid  insects  might  hap- 
pen along  and  devour  the  plants  before  the 
worms  began  spinning." 

"  '  Competition  is  the  life  of  trade,'  "  said 
Polly.  "  No,  that  is  n't  what  I  mean  — 
'  Nothing  venture,  nothing  have,'  that 's  it. 
Then  how  would  hens  do  ?  Ever  so  many 
women  raise  hens." 

"  Hens  have  diseases,  and  they  never  lay 
very  well  when  you  have  to  sell  the  eggs. 
By  the  way,  Clarence  Jones,  who  sings  in 
the  choir,  —  you  know,  the  man  with  the 
pink  cheeks  and  corn-silk  hair,  —  advertises 
in  the  '  Daily  Press '  for  a  '  live  partner.' 
Now,  there  's  a  chance  on  an  established  hen- 
ranch,  if  he  does  n't  demand  capital  or  ex- 
perience." 

"  It 's  a  better  chance  for  Miss  Ferguson. 
But  she  does  n't  like  Mr.  Jones,  because 
when  he  comes  to  call,  his  coat-pockets  are 
always  bulging  with  brown  paper  packages 
of  a  hen-food  that  he  has  just  invented. 
The  other  day,  when  he  came  to  see  her,  she 
was  out,  and  he  handed  me  his  card.  It 
had  a  picture  and  advertisement  of  '  The 
Royal  Dish-faced  Berkshire  Pig '  on  it ;  and 
I  'm  sure,  by  her  expression  when  she  saw 
it,  that  she  will  never  be  his  '  live  partner.' 


28  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

No,  I  don't  think  I  '11  have  an  out-of-door 
occupation,  it 's  so  trying  to  the  complex- 
ion. Now,  how  about  millinery  ?  I  could 
be  an  apprentice,  and  gradually  rise  until  I 
imported  everything  direct  from  Paris." 

"  But,  Polly,"  objected  Margery,  "  you 
know  you  never  could  tie  a  bow,  or  even  put 
a  ribbon  on  your  sailor  hat." 

"  But  I  could  learn.  Do  you  suppose  all 
the  milliners  were  called  to  their  work  by 
a  consciousness  of  genius?  Perish  the 
thought !  If  that  were  true,  there  would  n't 
be  so  many  hideous  hats  in  the  shop  win- 
dows. However,  I  don't  pine  for  millinery  ; 
it 's  always  a  struggle  for  me  to  wear  a  hat 
myself." 

"You've  done  beautifully  the  last  year  or 
two,  dear,  and  you  've  reaped  the  reward  of 
virtue,  for  you  ?ve  scarcely  a  freckle  left." 

"Oh,  that  isn't  hats,"  rejoined  Polly, 
"  that 's  the  law  of  compensation.  When  I 
was  younger,  and  did  n't  take  the  boarders 
so  much  to  heart,  I  had  freckles  given  to 
me  for  a  cross  ;  but  the  moment  I  grew  old 
enough  to  see  the  boarders  in  their  true 
light  and  note  their  effect  on  mamma,  the 
freckles  disappeared.  Now,  here  's  an  idea. 
I  might  make  a  complexion  lotion  for  a  liv- 


POLLY  OLLVEE'S  PROBLEM.  29 

ing.  Let  me  see  what  I  've  been  advised  by 
elderly  ladies  to  use  in  past  years  :  ammonia, 
lemon-juice,  cucumbers,  morning  dew,  milk, 
pork  rinds,  kerosene,  and  a  few  other  house- 
hold remedies.  Of  course  I'm  not  sure 
which  did  the  work,  but  why  could  n't  I  mix 
them  all  in  equal  parts,  —  if  they  would 
mix,  you  know,  and  let  those  stay  out  that 
would  n't,  —  and  call  it  the  '  Olivera  Com- 
plexion Lotion  '  ?  The  trade-mark  might  be 
a  cucumber,  a  lemon,  and  a  morning  dew- 
drop,  rampant,  and  a  frightened  little  brown 
spot  couchant.  Then  on  the  neat  label 
pasted  on  the  bottles  above  the  trade-mark 
there  might  be  a  picture  of  a  spotted  girl,  — 
that 's  Miss  Oliver  before  using  her  lotion, 
—  and  a  copy  of  my  last  photograph,  — 
that 's  Miss  Oliver  radiant  in  beauty  after 
using  her  lotion." 

Margery  laughed,  as  she  generally  did  at 
Polly's  nonsense. 

"  That  sounds  very  attractive,  but  if  you 
are  anxious  for  an  elegant  and  dignified  oc- 
cupation  which  shall  restore  your  mother  to 
her  ancestral  position,  it  certainly  has  its 
defects." 

"  I  know  everything  has  its  defects,  every- 
thing except  one,  and  I  won't  believe  that 
has  a  single  weak  point." 


30  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Oh,  Polly,  you  deceiver  !  You  have  a 
secret  leaning  toward  some  particular  thing, 
after  all !  " 

"  Yes ;  though  I  have  n't  talked  it  over 
fully  yet,  even  with  mamma,  lest  she  should 
think  it  one  of  my  wild  schemes ;  but,  Mar- 
gery, I  want  with  all  my  heart  to  be  a 
kindergartner  like  Miss  Mary  Denison. 
There  would  be  no  sting  to  me  in  earning 
my  living,  if  only  I  could  do  it  by  working 
among  poor,  ragged,  little  children,  as  she 
does.  I  run  in  and  stay  half  an  hour  with 
her  whenever  I  can,  and  help  the  babies  with 
their  sewing  or  weaving,  and  I  always  study 
and  work  better  myself  afterward,  —  I  don't 
know  whether  it 's  the  children,  or  Miss 
Denison,  or  the  place,  or  all  three.  And 
the  other  day,  when  I  was  excused  from  my 
examinations,  I  stayed  the  whole  morning 
in  the  kindergarten.  When  it  was  time  for 
the  games,  and  they  were  all  on  the  circle, 
they  began  with  a  quiet  play  they  call '  Silent 
Greeting,'  and  oh,  Margery,  they  chose  me 
to  come  in,  of  their  own  accord!  AY  hen  I 
walked  into  the  circle  to  greet  that  smallest 
Walker  baby  my  heart  beat  like  a  trip- 
hammer, I  was  so  afraid  I  should  do  some- 
thing wrong,  and  they  would  never  ask  me 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  31 

in  again.  Then  we  played  '  The  Hen  and 
Chickens,'  and  afterward  something  abont 
the  birds  in  the  greenwood;  and  one  of 
the  make-believe  birds  flew  to  me  (I  was  a 
tree,  you  know,  a  whispering  elm-tree),  and 
built  its  nest  in  my  branches,  and  then  I 
smoothed  its  feathers  and  sang  to  it  as  the 
others  had  done,  and  it  was  like  heaven ! 
After  the  play  was  over,  we  modeled  clay 
birds ;  and  just  as  we  were  making  the  tables 
tidy,  Professor  Hohlweg  came  in  and  aske*d 
Miss  Denison  to  come  into  the  large  hall  to 
play  for  the  marching,  as  the  music-teacher 
was  absent.  Then  what  did  Miss  Denison 
do  but  turn  to  me  and  say,  '  Miss  Oliver, 
you  get  on  so  nicely  with  the  children,  would 
you  mind  telling  them  some  little  story  for 
me  ?  I  shall  be  gone  only  ten  or  fifteen  min- 
utes.' Oh,  Margery,  it  was  awful !  I  was 
more  frightened  than  when  I  was  asked  to 
come  into  the  circle ;  but  the  children  clapped 
their  hands  and  cried,  'Yes,  yes,  tell  us  a 
story ! '  I  could  only  think  of  8  The  Hen 
that  Hatched  Ducks,'  but  I  sat  down  and 
began,  and,  as  I  talked,  I  took  my  clay  bird 
and  molded  it  into  a  hen,  so  that  they  would 
look  at  me  whether  they  listened  or  not. 
Of  course,  one  of  the  big  seven-year-old  boys 


32  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

began  to  whisper  and  be  restless,  but  I 
banded  him  a  large  lump  of  clay  and  asked 
him  to  make  a  nest  and  some  eggs  for  my 
hen,  and  that  soon  absorbed  his  attention. 
They  listened  so  nicely, — you  can  hardly 
believe  how  nicely  they  listened !  When  I 
finished  I  looked  at  the  clock.  It  had  been 
nine  minutes,  and  I  could  n't  think  what 
to  do  the  other  dreadful  minutes  till  Miss 
Denison  should  come  back.  At  last  my  eye 
fell  on  the  blackboard,  and  that  gave  me  an 
idea.  I  drew  a  hen's  beak  and  then  a  duck's, 
a  hen's  foot  and  then  a  duck's,  to  show 
them  the  difference.  Just  then  Miss  Denison 
came  in  softly,  and  I  confess  I  was  bursting 
with  pride  and  delight.  There  was  the 
blackboard  with  the  sketches,  not  very  good 
ones,  it  is  true,  the  clay  hen  and  nest  and 
eggs,  and  all  the  children  sitting  quietly  in 
their  wee  red  chairs.  And  Miss  Denison 
said,  '  How  charming  of  you  to  carry  out  the 
idea  of  the  morning  so  nicely !  My  dear 
little  girl,  you  were  made  for  this  sort  of 
thing,  did  you  know  it  ?  ' " 

"Well,  I  should  n't  think  you  had  pa- 
tience enough  for  any  sort  of  teaching,"  said 
Margery  candidly. 

"  Neither  did  I  suppose  so  myself,  and  T 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  33 

have  n't  any  patience  to  spare,  that  is,  for 
boarders,  or  dishes,  or  beds  ;  but  I  love  chil- 
dren so  dearly  that  they  never  try  my  pa- 
tience as  other  things  do." 

"  You  have  had  the  play  side  of  the  kinder- 
garten, Polly,  while  Miss  Denison  had  the 
care.  There  must  be  a  work-a-day  side  to 
it ;  I  'm  sure  Miss  Denison  very  often  looks 
tired  to  death." 

"  Of  course  !  "  cried  Polly.  "  I  know  it 's 
hard  work ;  but  who  cares  whether  a  thing 
is  hard  or  not,  if  one  loves  it  ?  I  don't  mind 
work  ;  I  only  mind  working  at  something  I 
dislike  and  can  never  learn  to  like.  Why, 
Margery,  at  the  Sunday-school  picnics  you 
go  off  in  the  broiling  sun  and  sit  on  a  camp- 
chair  and  sketch,  while  I  play  Fox  and 
Geese  with  the  children,  and  each  of  us 
pities  the  other  and  thinks  she  must  be 
dying  with  heat.  It  's  just  the  difference 
between  us !  You  carry  your  easel  and 
stool  and  paint-boxes  and  umbrella  up  the 
steepest  hill,  and  never  mind  if  your  back 
aches ;  I  bend  over  Miss  Denison's  children 
with  their  drawing  or  building,  and  never 
think  of  my  back-ache,  do  you  see  ?  " 

"Yes;  but  I  always  keep  up  my  spirits 
by  thinking  that  though  I  may  be  tired  and 


34  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

discouraged,  it  is  worth  while  because  it  is 
Art  I  am  working  at ;  and  for  the  sake  of 
being  an  artist  I  ought  to  be  willing  to 
endure  anything.  You  would  n't  have  that 
feeling  to  inspire  and  help  you." 

"I  should  like  to  know  why  I  would  n't," 
exclaimed  Polly,  with  flashing  eyes.  "  I 
should  like  to  know  why  teaching  may  not 
be  an  art.  I  confess  I  don't  know  exactly 
what  an  artist  is,  or  rather  what  the  diction- 
ary definition  of  art  is  ;  but  sit  down  in  Miss 
Burke's  room  at  the  college  ;  you  can't  stay 
there  half  an  hour  without  thinking  that, 
rather  than  have  her  teach  you  anything, 
you  would  be  an  ignorant  little  cannibal  on 
a  desert  island  !  She  does  n't  know  how, 
and  there  is  nothing  beautiful  about  it. 
But  look  at  Miss  Denison  !  "When  she  comes 
into  her  kindergarten  it  is  like  the  sunrise, 
and  she  makes  everything  blossom  that  she 
touches.  It  is  all  so  simple  and  sweet  that 
it  seems  as  if  anybody  coidd  do  it;  but 
when  you  try  it  you  find  that  it  is  quite 
different.  Whether  she  plays  or  sings,  or 
talks  or  works  with  the  children,  it  is  per- 
fect. -  It  all  seems  so  easy  when  you  do  it,' 
I  said  to  her  yesterday,  and  she  pointed  to 
the  quotation  for  the  day  in  her  calendar. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  35 

It  was  a  sentence  from  George  MacDonald : 
'  Ease  is  the  lovely  result  of  forgotten  toil.' 
Now  it  may  be  that  Miss  Mary  Denison  is 
only  an  angel ;  but  I  think  that  she  's  an 
artist." 

"On  second  thoughts,  perhaps  you  are 
right  in  your  meaning  of  the  word,  though  it 
does  n't  follow  that  all  teachers  are  artists." 

"  No ;  nor  that  all  the  painters  are,"  re- 
torted Polly.  "Think  of  that  poor  Miss 
Thomas  in  your  outdoor  class.  Last  week, 
when  you  were  sketching  the  cow  in  front  of 
the  old  barn,  I  sat  behind  her  for  half  an 
hour.  Her  barn  grew  softer  and  softer  and 
her  cow  harder  and  harder,  till  when  she 
finished,  the  barn  looked  as  if  it  were  molded 
in  jelly  and  the  cow  as  if  it  were  carved  in 
red  sandstone." 

"  She  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  paint," 
said  Margery  decisively. 

"  Of  course  she  ought  n't !  That 's  just 
what  I  say ;  and  I  ought  not  to  be  allowed 
to  keep  boarders,  and  I  won't !  " 

"  I  must  say  you  have  wonderful  courage, 
Polly.  It  seems  so  natural  and  easy  for  you 
to  strike  out  for  yourself  in  a  new  line  that 
it  must  be  you  feel  a  sense  of  power,  and  that 
you  will  be  successful.  " 


36  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Polly's  manner  changed  abruptly  as  she 
glanced  in  at  her  mother's  empty  chair  before 
she  replied. 

"  Courage  !  Sometimes  I  think  I  have  n't 
a  morsel.  I  am  a  gilded  sham.  My  knees 
tremble  whenever  I  think  of  my  future  4  ca- 
reer,' as  I  call  it.  Mamma  thinks  me  filled 
with  a  burning  desire  for  a  wider  sphere  of 
action,  and  so  I  am,  but  chiefly  for  her  sake. 
Courage !  There  's  nothing  like  having  a 
blessed,  tired  little  mother  to  take  care  of,  — 
a  mother  whom  you  want  to  snatch  from  the 
jaws  of  a  horrible  fate.  That's  a  trifle 
strong,  but  it's  dramatic!  You  see,  Mar- 
gery, a  woman  like  my  mother  is  not  going 
to  remain  forever  in  her  present  rank  in  her 
profession,  —  she  is  too  superior ;  she  is  bound 
to  rise.  Now,  what  would  become  of  her  if 
she  rose  ?  Why,  first,  she  would  keep  a  coun- 
try hotel,  and  sit  on  the  front  piazza  in  a  red 
rocker,  and  chat  with  the  commercial  trav- 
elers ;  and  then  she  would  become  the  head 
of  a  summer  resort,  with  a  billiard-room  and 
a  bowling-alley.  I  must  be  self-supporting, 
and  '  I  will  never  desert  Mr.  Micawber,'  so  I 
should  make  beds  and  dust  in  Hotel  Number 
One,  and  in  Hotel  Number  Two  entertain 
the  guests  with  my  music  and  my  '  sprightly 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  37 

manners,'  —  that 's  what  Mr.  Greenwood  calls 
them,  and  the  only  reason  I  am  sorry  we  live 
in  a  republic  is  that  I  can't  have  him  guil- 
lotined for  doing  it,  but  must  swallow  my 
wrath  because  he  pays  twenty  dollars  a  week 
and  seldom  dines  at  home.  Finally,  in 
Hotel  Number  Three  I  should  probably 
marry  the  ninepin-man  or  the  head  clerk,  so 
as  to  consolidate  the  management  and  save 
salaries,  and  there  would  end  the  annals 
of  the  Olivers  !  No,  Margery !  "  cried  Polly, 
waving  the  scissors  in  the  air,  "everybody 
is  down  on  the  beach,  and  I  can  make  the 
welkin  ring  if  I  like,  so  hear  me :  The 
boarders  must  go  !  How,  when,  and  where 
they  shall  go  are  three  problems  I  have  n't 
yet  solved ;  and  what  I  shall  find  to  take  the 
place  of  them  when  they  do  go  is  a  fourth 
problem,  and  the  knottiest  one  of  all !  " 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  DOCTOR  GIVES  POLLY  A  PRESCRIPTION. 

As  the  summer  wore  away,  Mrs.  Oliver 
daily  grew  more  and  more  languid,  until  at 
length  she  was  forced  to  ask  a  widowed 
neighbor,  Mrs.  Chadwick,  to  come  and  take 
the  housekeeping  cares  until  she  should  feel 
stronger.  But  beef-tea  and  drives,  salt- 
water bathing  and  tonics,  seemed  to  do  no 
good,  and  at  length  there  came  a  day  when 
she  had  not  sufficient  strength  to  sit  up. 

The  sight  of  her  mother  actually  in  bed  in 
the  daytime  gave  Polly  a  sensation  as  of  a 
cold  hand  clutching  at  her  heart,  and  she  ran 
for  Dr.  Edgerton  in  an  agony  of  fear.  But 
good  "  Dr.  George  "  (as  he  was  always  called, 
because  he  began  practice  when  his  father, 
the  old  doctor,  was  still  living)  came  home 
with  her,  cheered  her  by  his  hopeful  view  of 
the  case,  and  asked  her  to  call  at  his  office 
that  afternoon  for  some  remedies. 

After  dinner  was  over,  Polly  kissed  her 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  39 

sleeping  mother,  laid  a  rose  on  her  pillow  for 
good-by,  and  stole  out  of  the  room. 

Her  heart  was  heavy  as  she  walked  into 
the  office  where  the  doctor  sat  alone  at  his 
desk. 

"  Good-day,  my  dear !  "  he  said  cordially, 
as  he  looked  up,  for  she  was  one  of  his  prime 
favorites.  "  Bless  my  soul,  how  you  do 
grow,  child  !  Why  you  are  almost  a  wo- 
man !  " 

"  I  am  quite  a  woman,"  said  Polly,  with 
a  choking  sensation  in  her  throat ;  "  and  you 
have  something  to  say  to  me,  Dr.  George,  or 
you  would  n't  have  asked  me  to  leave  mamma 
and  come  here  this  stifling  day :  you  would 
have  sent  the  medicine  by  your  office-boy." 

Dr.  George  laid  down  his  pen  in  mild 
amazement.  "  You  are  a  woman,  in  every 
sense  of  the  word,  my  dear !  Bless  my  soul, 
how  you  do  hit  it  occasionally,  you  sprig  of 
a  girl !  Now,  sit  by  that  window,  and  we  '11 
talk.  What  I  wanted  to  say  to  you  is  this, 
Polly.  Your  mother  must  have  an  entire 
change.  Six  months  ago  I  tried  to  send  her 
to  a  rest-cure,  but  she  refused  to  go  any- 
where without  you,  saying  that  you  were  her 
best  tonic." 

Two  tears  ran  down  Polly's  cheeks, 


40  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Tell  me  that  again,  please,"  she  said 
softly,  looking  out  of  the  window. 

"  She  said  —  if  you  will  have  the  very 
words,  and  all  of  them  —  that  you  were  sun 
and  stimulant,  fresh  air,  medicine,  and  nour- 
ishment, and  that  she  could  not  exist  without 
those  indispensables,  even  in  a  rest-cure." 

Polly's  head  went  down  on  the  window- 
sill  in  a  sudden  passion  of  tears. 

"  Hoity-toity !  that  's  a  queer  way  of  re- 
ceiving a  compliment,  young  woman  !  " 

She  tried  to  smile  through  her  April 
shower. 

"  It  makes  me  so  happy,  yet  so  unhappy, 
Dr.  George.  Mamma  has  been  working  her 
strength  away  so  many  years,  and  I  've 
been  too  young  to  realize  it,  and  too  young 
to  prevent  it,  and  now  that  I  am  grown  up 
I  am  afraid  it  is  too  late." 

"Not  too  late,  at  all,"  said  Dr.  George 
cheerily  ;  "  only  we  must  begin  at  once  and 
attend  to  the  matter  thoroughly.  Your 
mother  has  been  in  this  southern  climate  too 
long,  for  one  thing ;  she  needs  a  change  of 
air  and  scene.  San  Francisco  will  do,  though 
it  's  not  what  I  should  choose.  She  must  be 
taken  entirely  away  from  her  care,  and  from 
everything  that  will  remind  her  of  it ;  and 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  41 

she  must  live  quietly,  where  she  will  not 
have  to  make  a  continual  effort  to  smile  and 
talk  to  people  three  times  a  clay.  Being- 
agreeable,  polite,  and  good-tempered  for 
fifteen  years,  without  a  single  lapse,  will 
send  anybody  into  a  decline.  You  '11  never 
go  that  way,  my  Polly  !  Now,  pardon  me, 
but  how  much  ready  money  have  you  laid 
away  ?  " 

"  Three  hundred  and  twelve  dollars." 

"  Whew !  " 

"  It  is  a  good  deal,"  said  Polly,  with  mod- 
est pride  ;  "  and  it  would  have  been  more  yet 
if  we  had  not  just  painted  the  house." 

"  '  A  good  deal !  '  my  poor  lambkin  !  I 
hoped  it  was  $1012,  at  least;  but,  however, 
you  have  the  house,  and  that  is  as  good  as 
money.  The  house  must  be  rented  at  once, 
furniture,  boarders,  and  all,  as  it  stands.  It 
ought  to  bring  $85  or  $95  a  month,  in  these 
times,  and  you  can  manage  on  that,  with  the 
$312  as  a  reserve." 

"  What  if  the  tenant  should  give  up  the 
house  as  soon  as  we  are  fairly  settled  in  San 
Francisco  ?  "  asked  Polly,  with  an  absolutely 
new  gleam  of  caution  and  business  in  her 
eye. 

"Brava!     Why  do  I  attempt  to  advise 


42  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

such  a  capable  little  person  ?  Well,  in  the 
first  place,  there  are  such  things  as  leases  ; 
and  in  the  second  place,  if  your  tenant 
should  move  out,  the  agent  must  find  you 
another  in  short  order,  and  you  will  live, 
meanwhile,  on  the  reserve  fund.  But,  jok- 
ing aside,  there  is  very  little  risk.  It  is 
going  to  be  a  great  winter  for  Santa  Bar- 
bara, and  your  house  is  attractive,  convenient, 
and  excellently  located.  If  we  can  get  your 
affairs  into  such  shape  that  your  mother 
will  not  be  anxious,  I  hope,  and  think,  that 
the  entire  change  and  rest,  together  with  the 
bracing  air,  will  work  wonders.  I  shall  give 
you  a  letter  to  a  physician,  a  friend  of  mine, 
and  fortunately  I  shall  come  up  once  a 
month  during  the  winter  to  see  an  old  patient 
who  insists  on  retaining  me  just  from  force 
of  habit." 

"  And  in  another  year,  Dr.  George,  I  shall 
be  ready  to  take  care  of  mamma  myself ;  and 
then  — 

She  shall  sit  on  a  cushion,  and.  sew  a  fine  seam, 
And  feast  upon  strawberries,  sugar,  and  cream." 

"Assuredly,  my  Polly,  assuredly.5'  The 
doctor  was  pacing  up  and  down  the  office 
now,  hands  in  pockets,  eyes  on  floor.  "  The 
world  is  your  oyster ;   open  it,  my  dear,  — 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  43 

open  it.  By  the  way,"  with,  a  sharp  turn, 
"  with  what  do  you  propose  to  open  it?  " 

"  I  don't  know  yet,  but  not  with  boarders, 
Dr.  George." 

"  Tut,  tut,  child  ;  must  n't  despise  small 
things !  " 

"  Such  as  Mr.  Greenwood,"  said  Polly  irre- 
pressibly,  "  weight  two  hundred  and  ninety 
pounds ;  and  Mrs.  Darling,  height  six  feet 
one  inch ;  no,  I  '11  try  not  to  despise  small 
things,  thank  you  !  " 

"  Well,  if  there  's  a  vocation,  it  will '  call,' 
you  know,  Polly.  I  'd  rather  like  you  for 
an  assistant,  to  drive  my  horse  and  amuse 
my  convalescents.  Bless  my  soul !  you  'd 
make  a  superb  nurse,  except" — 

"  Except  what,  sir  ?  " 

"  You  're  not  in  equilibrium  yet,  my  child ; 
you  are  either  up  or  down,  generally  up. 
You  bounce,  so  to  speak.  Now,  a  nurse 
must  n't  bounce ;  she  must  be  poised,  as 
it  were,  or  suspended  betwixt  and  between, 
like  Mahomet's  coffin.  But  thank  Heaven 
for  your  high  spirits,  all  the  same  !  They 
will  tide  you  over  many  a  hard  place,  and 
the  years  will  bring  the  '  inevitable  yoke  ' 
soon  enough,  Polly,"  and  here  Dr.  George 
passed  behind  the  girl's  chair  and  put  his 


44  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

two  kind  hands  on  her  shoulders.  "  Polly, 
can  you  be  really  a  woman  ?  Can  you  put 
the  little-girl  days  bravely  behind  you  ?  " 

"I  can,  Dr.  George."  This  in  a  very 
trembling  voice. 

"  Can  you  settle  all  these  details  for  your 
mother,  and  assume  responsibilities?  Can 
you  take  her  away,  as  if  she  were  the  child 
and  you  the  mother,  all  at  once?  " 

"  I  can  !  "     This  more  firmly. 

"  Can  you  deny  yourself  for  her,  as  she 
has  for  you  ?  Can  you  keep  cheerful  and 
sunny?  Can  you  hide  your  fears,  if  there 
should  be  cause  for  any,  in  your  own  heart  ? 
Can  you  be  calm  and  strong,  if  "  — 

"No,  no!"  gasped  Polly,  dropping  her 
head  on  the  back  of  the  chair  and  shivering 
like  a  leaf.  "  No,  no ;  don't  talk  about  fears, 
Dr.  George.  She  will  be  better.  She  will 
be  better  very  soon.     I  could  not  live  "  — 

"  It  is  n't  so  easy  to  die,  my  child,  with 
plenty  of  warm  young  blood  running  pell- 
mell  through  your  veins,  and  a  sixteen-year- 
old  heart  that  beats  like  a  chronometer." 

"  I  could  not  bear  life  without  mamma, 
Dr.  George !  " 

"  A  human  being,  made  in  the  image  of 
God,  can  bear  anything,  child ;  but  I  hope 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  45 

you  won't  have  to  meet  that  sorrow  for  many 
a  long  year  yet.  I  will  come  in  to-morrow 
and  coax  your  mother  into  a  full  assent  to 
my  plans ;  meanwhile,  fly  home  with  your 
medicines.  There  was  a  time  when  you 
used  to  give  my  tonics  at  night  and  my  sleep- 
ing-draught in  the  morning;  but  I  believe 
in  you  absolutely  from  this  day." 

Polly  put  her  two  slim  hands  in  the  kind 
doctor's,  and  looking  up  with  brimming 
eyes  into  his  genial  face  said,  "  Dear  Dr. 
George,  you  may  believe  in  me ;  indeed, 
indeed  you  may  !  " 

Dr.  George  looked  out  of  his  office  win- 
dow, and  mused  as  his  eyes  followed  Polly 
up  the  shaded  walk  under  the  pepper-trees. 

"  Oh,  these  young  things,  these  young 
things,  how  one's  heart  yearns  over  them  !  " 
he  sighed.  "  There  she  goes,  full  tilt,  not- 
withstanding the  heat ;  hat  swinging  in  her 
hand  instead  of  being  on  her  pretty  head ; 
her  heart  bursting  with  fond  schemes  to  keep 
that  precious  mother  alive.  It 's  a  splendid 
nature,  that  girl's ;  one  that  is  in  danger  of 
being  wrecked  by  its  own  impetuosity,  but 
one  so  full  and  rich  that  it  is  capable  of 
bubbling  over  and  enriching  all  the  dull  and 
sterile  ones  about  it.     Now,  if  all  the  money 


46  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

I  can  rake  and  scrape  together  need  not  go 
to  those  languid,  boneless  children  of  my 
languid,  boneless  sister-in-law,  I  could  put 
that  brave  little  girl  on  her  feet.  I  think 
she  will  be  able  to  do  battle  with  the  world 
so  long  as  she  has  her  mother  for  a  motive- 
power.  The  question  is,  how  will  she  do  it 
without?" 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  BOARDERS  STAY,  AND  THE  OLIVERS  GO. 

Dr.  George  found  Mrs.  Oliver  too  ill  to  be 
anything  but  reasonable.  After  a  long  talk 
about  her  own  condition  and  Polly's  future, 
she  gave  a  somewhat  tearful  assent  to  all  his 
plans  for  their  welfare,  and  agreed  to  make 
the  change  when  a  suitable  tenant  was 
found  for  the  house. 

So  Polly  eased  the  anxiety  that  gnawed 
at  her  heart  by  incredible  energy  in  the  direc- 
tion of  house-cleaning ;  superintending  all 
sorts  of  scrubbings,  polishings,  and  renovat- 
ing of  carpets  with  the  aid  of  an  extra  China- 
man, who  was  fresh  from  his  native  rice-fields 
and  stupid  enough  to  occupy  any  one's  mind 
to  the  exclusion  of  other  matters. 

Each  boarder  in  turn  was  asked  to  make 
a  trip  to  the  country  on  a  certain  day,  and 
on  his  return  found  his  room  in  spotless 
order ;  while  all  this  time  the  tired  mother 
lay  quietly  in  her  bed,  knowing  little  or  no- 
thing of  her  daughter's  superhuman  efforts  to 


48  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

be  "  good."  But  a  month  of  rest  worked  won- 
ders, and  Mrs.  Oliver  finally  became  so  like 
her  usual  delicate  but  energetic  self  that 
Polly  almost  forgot  her  fears,  although  she 
remitted  none  of  her  nursing  and  fond  but 
rigid  discipline. 

At  length  something  happened ;  and  one 
glorious  Saturday  morning  in  October,  Polly 
saddled  Blanquita,  the  white  mare  which 
Bell  Winship  had  left  in  Polly's  care  during 
her  European  trip,  and  galloped  over  to  the 
Nobles'  ranch  in  a  breathless  state  of  excite- 
ment. 

Blanquita  was  happy  too,  for  Polly  had  a 
light  hand  on  the  rein  and  a  light  seat  in  the 
saddle.  She  knew  there  would  be  a  long  rest 
at  the  journey's  end,  and  that,  too,  under  a 
particularly  shady  pepper-tree  ;  so  both  horse 
and  rider  were  in  a  golden  humor  as  they 
loped  over  the  dusty  road,  the  blue  Pacific 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  brown  hills,  thirsty 
for  rain,  on  the  other. 

Polly  tied  Blanquita  to  the  pepper-tree, 
caught  her  habit  in  one  hand,  and  ran  up  the 
walnut-tree  avenue  to  the  Nobles'  house. 
There  was  no  one  in  ;  but  that  was  nothing 
unusual,  since  a  house  is  chiefly  useful  for 
sleeping  purposes  in  that  lovely  climate.     No 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  49 

one  on  the  verandas,  no  one  in  the  hammocks ; 
after  seeking  for  some  little  time  she  came 
upon  Margery  and  her  mother  at  work  in 
their  orange-tree  sitting-room,  Mrs.  Noble 
with  her  mending-basket,  Margery  painting 
as  usual. 

The  orange-tree  sitting-room  was  merely  a 
platform  built  under  the  trees,  which  in  the 
season  of  blossoms  shed  a  heavy  fragrance  in 
the  warm  air,  and  later  on  hung  their  branches 
of  golden  fruit  almost  into  your  very  lap. 

"  Here  you  are  !  "  cried  Polly,  plunging 
through  the  trees  as  she  caught  sight  of 
Margery's  pink  dress.  "  You  have  n't  any 
hats  to  swing,  so  please  give  three  rousing 
cheers !  The  house  is  rented  and  a  lease 
signed  for  a  year !  " 

"  That  is  good  news,  indeed !  "  exclaimed 
Mrs.  Noble,  laying  down  her  needle.  "  And 
who  is  the  tenant  ?  " 

"  Whom  do  you  suppose  ?  Mrs.  Chadwick 
herself  !  She  has  been  getting  on  very 
nicely  with  the  housekeeping  (part  of  the 
credit  belongs  to  me,  but  no  one  would 
ever  believe  it),  and  the  boarders  have  been 
gradually  weaned  from  mamma  and  accus- 
tomed to  the  new  order  of  things,  so  they 
are   tolerably  'content.      Ah  Foy   also  has 


50  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

agreed  to  stay,  and  that  makes  matters 
still  more  serene,  since  he  is  the  best  cook 
in  Santa  Barbara.  Mrs.  Chadwick  will  pay 
eighty-five  dollars  a  month.  Dr.  George 
thinks  we  ought  to  get  more,  bnt  mamma  is 
so  glad  to  have  somebody  whom  she  knows, 
and  so  relieved  to  feel  that  there  will  be 
no  general  breaking  up  of  the  '  sweet,  sweet 
home,'  that  she  is  glad  to  accejrt  the  eighty- 
five  dollars ;  and  I  am  sure  that  we  can  live 
in  modest  penury  on  that  sum.  Of  course 
Mrs.  Chadwick  may  weary  in  well-doing ;  or 
she  may  die ;  or  she  may  even  get  married, 
—  though  that 's  very  unlikely,  unless  one  of 
the  boarders  can't  pay  his  board  and  wants 
to  make  it  up  to  her  in  some  way.  Heigho  ! 
I  feel  like  a  princess,  like  a  capitalist,  like  a 
gilded  society  lady!  "  sighed  Polly,  fanning 
herself  with  her  hat. 

"  And  now  you  and  your  mother  will  come 
to  us  for  a  week  or  two,  as  you  promised, 
won't  you?"  asked  Mrs.  Noble.  "That 
will  give  you  time  to  make  your  prepara- 
tions comfortably." 

Polly  took  a  note  from  her  pocket  and 
handed  it  to  Mrs.  Noble:  "Mrs.  Oliver 
presents  her  compliments  to  Mrs.  Noble,  and 
says  in  this  letter  that  we  accept  with  plea- 


■'■•;,,    ...        >,,-, 


POLLY   TELLS   THE    NEWS 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  51 

sure  Mrs.  Noble's  kind  invitation  to  visit 
her.  Said  letter  was  not  to  be  delivered  in 
case  Mrs.  Noble  omitted  to  renew  the  in- 
vitation; but  as  all  is  right,  I  don't  mind 
announcing  that  we  are  coming  the  day 
after  to-morrow." 

"  Oh,  Polly,  Polly !  How  am  I  ever  to 
live  without  you !  "  sighed  Margery.  "  First 
Elsie,  then  Bell,  now  you !  " 

"  Live  for  your  Art  with  a  big  A,  Peggy, 
but  it 's  not  forever.  By  and  by,  when  you 
are  a  successful  artist  and  I  am  a  success- 
ful something,  in  short,  when  we  are  both 
'careering,'  which  is  my  verb  to  express 
earning  one's  living  by  the  exercise  of  some 
splendid  talent,  we  will  '  career  '  together 
in  some  great  metropolis.  Our  mothers 
shall  dress  in  Lyons  velvet  and  point-lace. 
Their  delicate  fingers,  no  longer  sullied  by 
the  vulgar  dishcloth  and  duster,  shall  glitter 
with  priceless  gems,  while  you  and  I,  the 
humble  authors  of  their  greatness,  will  heap 
dimes  on  dimes  until  we  satisfy  ambition." 

Mrs.  Noble  smiled.  "  I  hope  your  '  career,' 
as  you  call  it,  will  be  one  in  which  imagina- 
tion will  be  of  use,  Polly." 

"  I  don't  really  imagine  all  the  imagina- 
tions you  imagine  I  imagine,"    said  Polly 


52  FOLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

soberly,  as  she  gave  Mrs.  Noble's  hand  an 
affectionate  squeeze.  "A  good  deal  of  it 
is  '  whistling  to  keep  my  courage  up.'  But 
everything  looks  hopeful  just  now.  Mamma 
is  so  much  better,  everybody  is  so  kind,  and 
do  you  know,  I  don't  loathe  the  boarders 
half  so  much  since  we  have  rented  them  with 
the  house  ? 

They  grow  in  beauty  side  by  side, 
They  fill  our  home  with  glee. 

Now  that  I  can  look  upon  them  as  personal 
property,  part  of  our  goods  and  chattels, 
they  have  ceased  to  be  disagreeable.  Even 
Mr.  Greenwood  —  you  remember  him,  Mar- 
gery?" 

"  The  fat  old  man  who  calls  you 
sprightly?" 

"  The  very  same ;  but  he  has  done  worse 
since  that.  To  be  called  sprightly  is  bad 
enough,  but  yesterday  he  said  that  he 
should  n't  be  surprised  if  I  married  well  — 
in  —  course  —  of —  time  !  " 

Nothing  but  italics  would  convey  the 
biting  sarcasm  of  Polly's  inflections,  and  no 
capitals  in  a  printer's  case  could  picture  her 
flashing  eyes,  or  the  vigor  with  which  she 
prodded  the  earth  with  her  riding-whip. 

"  I  agree  with  him,  that  it  is  not  impos- 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  53 

sible,"  said  Mrs.  Noble  teasingly,  after  a 
moment  of  silence. 

"  Now,  dearest  aunty  Meg,  don't  take 
sides  with  that  odious  man  !  If,  in  the  dis- 
tant years,  you  ever  see  me  on  the  point  of 
marrying  well,  simply  mention  Mr.  Green- 
wood's name  to  me,  and  I  '11  draw  back  even 
if  I  am  walking  up  the  middle  aisle  with  an 
ivory  prayer-book  in  my  hand !  " 

"  Just  to  spite  Mr.  Greenwood ;  that 
would  be  sensible,"  said  Margery. 

"  You  could  n't  be  so  calm  if  you  had  to 
sit  at  the  same  table  with  him  day  after  day. 
He  belongs  at  the  second  table  by — -by 
every  law  of  his  nature !  But,  as  I  was 
saying,  now  that  we  have  rented  him  to  Mrs. 
Chadwick  with  the  rest  of  the  furniture,  and 
will  have  a  percentage  on  him  just  as  we  do 
on  the  piano  which  is  far  more  valuable,  I 
have  been  able  to  look  at  him  pleasantly." 

"  You  ought  to  be  glad  that  the  boarders 
like  you,"  said  Margery  reprovingly. 

"  They  don't,  as  a  rule ;  only  the  horrors 
and  the  elderly  gentlemen  approve  of  me. 
But  good-by  for  to-clay,  aunty  Meg.  Come 
to  the  gate,  Peggy  dear !  " 

The  two  friends  walked  through  the 
orange-grove,  their  arms  wound  about  each 


54  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

other,  girl-fasliion.  They  were  silent,  for 
each  was  sorry  to  lose  the  other,  and  a  re- 
membrance of  the  dear  old  times,  the  un- 
broken circle,  the  peaceful  schooldays  and 
merry  vacations,  stole  into  their  young- 
hearts,  together  with  visions  of  the  unknown 
future. 

As  Polly  untied  Blanquita  and  gave  a 
heroic  cinch  to  the  saddle,  she  gave  a  last 
searching  look  at  Margery,  and  said  finally, 
"  Peggy  dear,  I  am  very  sure  you  are  blue 
this  morning ;  tell  your  faithful  old  Polly- 
kins  all  about  it." 

One  word  was  enough  for  Margery  in  her 
present  mood,  and  she  burst  into  tears  on 
Polly's  shoulder. 

"  Is  it  Edgar  again  ?  "  whispered  Polly. 

"  Yes,"  she  sobbed.  "  Father  has  given 
him  three  months  more  to  stay  in  the  uni- 
versity, and  unless  he  does  better  he  is  to 
come  home  and  live  on  the  cattle-ranch. 
Mother  is  heart-broken  over  it;  for  you 
know,  Polly,  that  Edgar  will  never  endure 
such  a  life ;  and  yet,  dearly  as  he  loves 
books,  he  is  n't  doing  well  with  his  studies. 
The  president  has  written  father  that  he  is 
very  indolent  this  term  and  often  absent 
from  recitations ;  and  one  of  the  Santa  Bar- 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  55 

bara  boys,  a  senior,  writes  Philip  that  he  is 
not  choosing  good  friends,  nor  taking  any 
rank  in  his  class.  Mother  has  written  him 
such  a  letter  this  morning  !  If  he  can  read 
it  without  turning  his  back  upon  his  tempta- 
tions, whatever  they  may  be,  I  shall  never 
have  any  pride  in  him  again ;  and  oh,  Polly, 
I  have  been  so  proud  of  him,  my  brilliant, 
handsome,  charming  brother !  " 

"  Poor  Edgar !  I  can't  believe  it  is  any- 
thing that  will  last.  He  is  so  bright  and 
lovable ;  every  one  thought  he  would  take 
the  highest  honors.  Why,  Margery,  he  is, 
or  was,  the  most  ambitious  boy  I  ever  knew ; 
and  surely,  surely  he  cannot  have  changed 
altogether !  Surely  he  will  come  to  himself 
when  he  knows  he  may  have  to  leave  college 
unless  he  does  his  best.  I  'm  so  sorry,  dear 
old  Peggy !  It  seems  heartless  that  my 
brighter  times  should  begin  just  when  you 
are  in  trouble.  Perhaps  mamma  and  I  can 
do  something  for  Edgar;  we  will  try,  you 
may  be  sure.  Good-by,  dearest ;  I  shall  see 
you  again  very  soon." 

Ten  days  later,  Polly  stood  on  the  deck 
of  the  Orizaba  just  at  dusk,  looking  back 
on  lovely  Santa  Barbara  as  it  lay  in  the  lap 


56  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

of  the  foothills  freshened  by  the  first  rains. 
The  dull,  red-tiled  roofs  of  the  old  Spanish 
adobes  gleamed  through  the  green  of  the 
pepper-trees,  the  tips  of  the  tall,  straggling 
blue-gums  stood  out  sharply  against  the  sky, 
and  the  twin  towers  of  the  old  Mission  rose 
in  dazzling  whiteness  above  a  wilderness 
of  verdure.  The  friendly  faces  on  the  wharf 
first  merged  themselves  into  a  blurred  mass 
of  moving  atoms,  then  sank  into  nothingness. 

Polly  glanced  into  her  stateroom.  Mrs. 
Oliver  was  a  good  sailor,  and  was  lying  snug 
and  warm  under  her  blankets.  So  Polly 
took  a  camp-chair  just  outside  the  door, 
wrapped  herself  in  her  fur  cape,  crowded 
her  tam-o'-shanter  tightly  on,  and  sat  there 
alone  as  the  sunset  glow  paled  in  the  western 
sky  and  darkness  fell  upon  the  face  of  the 
deep. 

The  mesa  faded  from  sight ;  and  then  the 
lighthouse,  where  she  had  passed  so  many 
happy  hours  in  her  childhood.  The  bright 
disk  of  flame  shone  clear  and  steady  across 
the  quiet  ocean,  seeming  to  say,  Let  your 
light  so  shine  !  Let  your  light  so  shine  ! 
Good  luck,  Polly  !  Keep  your  own  lamp 
filled  and  trimmed,  like  a  wise  little  vir- 
gin !    And  her  heart  answered,  "  Good-by, 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  57 

clear  light !  I  am  leaving  my  little-girl  clays 
on  the  shore  with  you,  and  I  am  out  on 
the  open  sea  of  life.  I  shall  know  that  you 
are  shining,  though  I  cannot  see  you. 
Good-by  !  Shine  on,  dear  light !  I  am  go- 
ing to  seek  my  fortune  !  " 


CHAPTER  V. 

TOLD    IN   LETTERS. 

Extracts  from  Polly  Oliver's  Correspondence. 
San  Francisco,  November  1,  188-. 

Dear  Margery,  —  I  have  been  able  to 
write  you  only  scraps  of  notes  heretofore, 
but  now  that  we  are  quite  settled  I  can  tell 
you  about  our  new  home.  We  were  at  a 
hotel  for  a  week,  as  long  as  I,  the  family 
banker,  felt  that  we  could  afford  it.  At  the 
end  of  that  time,  by  walking  the  streets 
from  morning  till  night,  looking  at  every 
house  with  a  sign  "  To  Let  "  on  it,  and  tak- 
ing mamma  to  see  only  the  desirable  ones, 
we  found  a  humble  spot  to  lay  our  heads. 
It  is  a  tiny  upper  flat,  which  we  rent  for 
thirty  dollars  a  month.  The  landlady  calls 
it  furnished,  but  she  has  an  imagination 
which  takes  even  higher  flights  than  mine. 
Still,  with  the  help  of  the  pretty  things  we 
brought  with  us,  we  are  very  cosy  and  com- 
fortable.    There   is   a   tiny   parlor,    which, 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  59 

with  our  Santa  Barbara  draperies,  table- 
covers,  afternoon  tea-table,  grasses,  and 
books,  looks  like  a  comer  of  the  dear  home 
sitting-room.  Out  of  this  parlor  is  a  sunny 
bedroom  with  two  single  brass  bedsteads,  and 
space  enough  to  spare  for  mamma's  rocking- 
chair  in  front  of  a  window  that  looks  out 
on  the  Golden  Gate.  The  dining-room  just 
holds,  by  a  squeeze,  the  extension-table  and 
four  chairs ;  and  the  dot  of  a  kitchen,  with 
an  enchanting  gas-stove,  completes  the  suite. 

We  are  dining  at  a  restaurant  a  short  dis- 
tance off,  at  present,  and  I  cook  the  break- 
fasts and  luncheons ;  but  on  Monday,  as 
mamma  is  so  well,  I  begin  school  from  nine 
to  twelve  each  day  under  a  special  arrange- 
ment, and  we  are  to  have  a  little  Chinese  boy 
who  will  assist  in  the  work  and  go  home  at 
night  to  sleep.  His  wages  will  be  eight  dol- 
lars a  month,  and  the  washing  probably  four 
dollars  more.  This,  with  the  rent,  takes 
forty-two  dollars  from  our  eighty-five,  and  it 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  it  is  too  much. 
I  shall  walk  one  way  to  school,  although  it 
is  sixteen  squares  and  all  up  and  down 
hill.  ... 

The  rains  thus  far  have  been  mostly  in 
the  night,  and  we  have  lovely  days.    Mamma 


60  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

and  I  take  long  rides  on  the  cable-cars  in  the 
afternoon,  and  stay  out  at  the  Cliff  House 
on  the  rocks  every  pleasant  Saturday. 
Then  we  've  discovered  nice  sheltered  nooks 
in  the  sand  dunes  beyond  the  park,  and 
there  we  stay  for  hours,  mamma  reading 
while  I  study.  We  are  so  quiet  and  so 
happy  ;  we  were  never  alone  together  in  our 
lives  before.  You,  dear  Peggy,  who  have  al- 
ways had  your  family  to  yourself,  can  hardly 
think  how  we  enjoy  being  at  table  together, 
just  we  two.  I  take  mamma's  coffee  to  her 
an^l  kiss  her  on  the  right  cheek  ;  then  follows 
an  egg,  with  another  kiss  on  the  left  cheek  ; 
then  a  bit  of  toast,  with  a  bear-hug,  and 
so  on.  We  have  a  few  pleasant  friends 
here,  you  know,  and  they  come  to  see  mamma 
without  asking  her  to  return  the  calls,  as 
they  see  plainly  she  has  no  strength  for 
society.  .  .  .  Polly. 

P.  S.  We  have  a  remarkable  front  door, 
which  opens  with  a  spring  located  in  the 
wall  at  the  top  of  the  stairs.  It  is  a  mod- 
ern improvement  and  I  never  tire  of  open- 
ing it,  even  though  each  time  I  am  obliged 
to  go  downstairs  to  close  it  again. 

When  Dr.  George  came  last  week,  he 
rang  the  bell,  and  being  tired  with  the  long 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  61 

pull  up  the  hill,  leaned  against  the  door  to 
breathe.  Of  course  I  knew  nothing  of  this, 
and  as  soon  as  I  heard  the  bell  I  flew  to 
open  the  door  with  my  usual  neatness  and 
dispatch,  when  who  should  tumble  in,  full 
length,  but  poor  dear  Dr.  George  !  He  was 
so  surprised,  and  the  opposite  neighbors 
were  so  interested,  and  I  was  so  sorry,  that 
I  was  almost  hysterical.  Dr.  George  insists 
that  the  door  is  a  trap  laid  for  unsuspecting 
country  people. 

November  9. 

...  The  first  week  is  over,  and  the 
finances  did  n't  come  out  right  at  all.  I  have 
a  system  of  bookkeeping  which  is  original, 
simple,  practical,  and  absolutely  reliable. 
The  house-money  I  keep  in  a  cigar-box  with 
three  partitions  (formerly  used  for  birds' 
eggs),  and  I  divide  the  month's  money  in 
four  parts,  and  pay  everything  weekly. 

The  money  for  car-fare,  clothing,  and  sun- 
dries I  keep  in  an  old  silver  sugar-bowl,  and 
the  reserve  fund,  which  we  are  never  to  touch 
save  on  the  most  dreadful  provocation,  in  a 
Japanese  ginger-jar  with  a  cover.  These, 
plainly  marked,  repose  in  my  upper  drawer. 
Mamma  has  no  business  cares  whatever,  and 
everything  ought  to  work  to  a  charm,  as  it 


62  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

will  after  a  while.  But  this  first  week  has 
been  discouraging,  and  I  have  had  to  borrow 
enough  from  compartment  two,  cigar-box, 
to  pay  debts  incurred  by  compartment  one, 
cigar-box.  This  is  probably  because  we  had 
to  buy  a  bag  of  flour  and  ten  pounds  of 
sugar.  Of  course  this  won't  happen  every 
week.  .  .  . 

I  wrote  Ah  Toy  a  note  after  we  arrived, 
for  he  really  seems  to  have  a  human  affection 
for  us.  I  inclose  his  answer  to  my  letter. 
It  is  such  a  miracle  of  Chinese  construction 
that  it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  get  his 
idea ;  still  I  think  I  see  that  he  is  grateful 
for  past  favors  ;  that  he  misses  us  ;  that  the 
boarders  are  going  on  "  very  happy  and 
joy ;  "  that  he  is  glad  mamma  is  better,  and 
pleased  with  the  teacher  I  selected  for  him. 
But  here  it  is  ;  judge  for  yourself  :  — 

Santa  Barbara,  November  o. 

Dear  my  Frend. 

I  was  joy  pleased  to  received  a  letter  from  you 
how  are  Your  getting  along  and  my  Dear  if  your 
leaves  a  go  We  but  now  I  been  it  is  here  I  am  very 
sorry  for  are  a  your  go  to  in  San  Francisco  if  any 
now  did  you  been  it  is  that  here  very  happy  and  joy 
I  am  so  glad  for  your  are  to  do  teachers  for  me  but  I 
am  very  much  thank  you  dear  my  frend. 

Good-By.  Ah  Foy. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  63 

November  15. 

.  .  .  The  first  compartment,  cigar-box, 
could  n't  pay  back  the  money  it  borrowed 
from  the  second  compartment,  and  so  this  in 
turn  had  to  borrow  from  the  third  compart- 
ment. I  could  have  made  everything  straight, 
I  think,  if  we  had  n't  bought  a  feather  duster 
and  a  gallon  of  kerosene.  The  first  will  last 
forever,  and  the  second  for  six  weeks,  so  it 
is  n't  fair  to  call  compartment  number  two 
extravagant.  At  the  end  of  this  month  I 
shall  remove  some  of  the  partitions  in  the 
cigar-box  and  keep  the  house-money  in  two 
parts,  balancing  accounts  every  fortnight. .  . . 

November  24. 
.  .  .  My  bookkeeping  is  in  a  frightful 
snarl.  There  is  neither  borrowing  nor  lend- 
ing in  the  cigar-box  now,  for  all  the  money 
for  the  month  is  gone  at  the  end  of  the  third 
week.  The  water,  it  seems,  was  not  included 
in  the  thirty  dollars  for  the  rent,  and  com- 
partment three  had  to  pay  two  dollars  for 
that  purpose  when  compartment  two  was 
still  deeply  in  its  debt.  If  compartment  two 
had  only  met  its  rightful  obligations,  com- 
partment three  need  n't  have  "  failed  up,"  as 
they  say  in  New  England ;  but  as  it  is,  poor 


64  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

compartment  four  is  entirely  bankrupt,  and 
will  have  to  borrow  of  the  sugar-bowl  or  the 
ginger-jar.  As  these  banks  are  not  at  all  in 
the  same  line  of  business,  they  ought  not  to 
be  drawn  into  the  complications  of  the  cigar- 
box,  for  they  will  have  their  own  troubles 
by  and  by ;  but  I  don't  know  what  else  to 
do.  .  .  . 

December  2. 

...  It  came  out  better  at  the  end  of  the 
month  than  I  feared,  for  we  spent  very  little 
last  week,  and  have  part  of  the  ten  pounds  of 
sugar,  kerosene,  feather  duster,  scrubbing- 
brush,  blanc-mange  mould,  tapioca,  sago,  and 
spices  with  which  to  begin  the  next  month. 
I  suffered  so  with  the  debts,  losses,  business 
embarrassments,  and  failures  of  the  four 
compartments  that  when  I  found  I  was  only 
four  dollars  behind  on  the  whole  month's  ex- 
penses, I  knocked  out  all  the  compartments, 
and  am  not  going  to  keep  things  in  weeks. 
I  made  up  the  deficit  by  taking  two  dollars 
out  of  the  reserve  fund,  and  two  dollars  out 
of  my  ten-dollar  gold  piece  that  Dr.  George 
gave  me  on  my  birthday. 

I  have  given  the  ginger-jar  a  note  of  hand 
for  two  dollars  from  the  cigar-box,  and  it  has 
resumed  business  at  the  old  stand.     Compart- 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  65 

ment  four,  cigar-box,  which  is  perfectly  in- 
nocent, as  it  was  borrowed  out  of  house  and 
home  by  compartment  three,  also  had  to 
give  a  note  to  the  sugar-bowl,  and  I  made 
the  ginger-jar  give  me  a  note  for  my  two 
dollars  birthday-money. 

Whether  all  these  obligations  will  be  met 
without  lawsuits,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  I  know 
by  the  masterly  manner  in  which  I  have 
fought  my  way  through  these  intricate  affairs 
with  the  loss  of  only  four  dollars  in  four 
weeks,  that  I  possess  decided  business  ability, 
and  this  gives  me  courage  to  struggle  on. 

December  30,  188-. 
.  .  .  "We  are  having  hard  times,  dear  old 
Margery,  though  I  do  not  regret  coming  to 
San  Francisco,  for  mamma  could  not  bear 
the  slightest  noise  or  confusion,  nor  lift  her 
hand  to  any  sort  of  work,  in  her  present  con- 
dition. At  any  rate,  we  came  by  Dr.  George's 
orders,  so  my  conscience  is  clear.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Chadwick  has  sent  us  only  sixty-five 
dollars  this  month,  instead  of  eighty-five. 
Some  of  the  boarders  are  behind  in  their 
payments.  The  Darlings  have  gone  away, 
and  "  she  hopes  to  do  better  next  month." 
Mamma  cannot  bear  to  press  her,  she  is  so 


66  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

kind  and  well-meaning ;  so  do  not  for  the 
world  mention  the  matter  to  Dr.  George.  I 
will  write  to  him  when  I  must,  not  before. 

Meanwhile  I  walk  to  school  both  ways, 
saving  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  a  month.  Have 
found  a  cheaper  laundry;  one  dollar  more 
saved.  Cut  down  fruit  bill;  one  dollar 
more.  Blacked  my  white  straw  sailor  with 
shoe-blacking,  trimmed  it  with  two  neckties 
and  an  old  blackbird  badly  molted ;  result  per- 
fectly hideous,  but  the  sugar-bowl,  clothing, 
and  sundry  fund  are  out  of  debt  and  doing 
well.  Had  my  faded  gray  dress  dyed  black, 
and  trimmed  the  jacket  with  pieces  of  my 
moth-eaten  cock's-f eather  boa  ;  perfectly  ele- 
gant, almost  too  gorgeous  for  my  humble 
circumstances.  Mamma  looks  at  me  sadly 
when  I  don  these  ancient  garments,  and  al- 
most wishes  I  had  n't  such  "  a  wealthy  look." 
I  tell  her  I  expect  the  girls  to  say,  when  I 
walk  into  the  school-yard  on  Monday,  "  Who 
is  this  that  cometh  with  dyed  garments  from 
Bozrah?" 

Mamma  has  decided  that  I  may  enter  a 
training-school  for  kindergartners  next  year ; 
so  I  am  taking  the  studies  that  will  give  me 
the  best  preparation,  and  I  hope  to  earn  part 
of  my  tuition  fees,  when  the  time  comes,  by 
teaching  as  assistant.  .  .  . 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  67 

I  go  over  to  Berkeley  once  a  week  to  talk 
Spanish  with  kind  Professor  Salazar  and  his 
wife.  They  insist  that  it  is  a  pleasure,  and 
will  not  allow  mamma  to  pay  anything  for 
the  lessons.  I  also  go  every  Tuesday  to  tell 
stories  at  the  Children's  Hospital.  It  is  the 
dearest  hour  of  the  week.  When  I  am  dis- 
tracted about  bills  and  expenses  and  mam- 
ma's health  and  Mrs.  Chadwick's  misman- 
agements and  Yung  Lee's  mistakes  (for 
he  is  beautiful  as  an  angel  and  stupid  as  a 
toad),  I  put  on  my  hat  and  go  out  to  the 
children,  poor  little  things !  They  always 
have  a  welcome  for  me,  bless  them !  and  I 
always  come  back  ready  to  take  up  my  trials 
again.  Edgar  is  waiting  to  take  this  to  the 
post-box,  so  I  must  say  good-night.  He  is 
such  a  pleasure  to  us  and  such  a  comfort  to 
mamma.  I  know  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life  the  fun  of  having  a  brother. 

Ever  your  affectionate         Pollykins. 

The  foregoing  extracts  from  Polly's  busi- 
ness letters  give  you  an  idea  only  of  her 
financial  difficulties.  She  was  tempted  to 
pour  these  into  one  sympathizing  ear,  inas- 
much as  she  kept  all  annoyances  from  her 
mother  as  far  as  possible  ;  though  household 


68  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

economies,  as  devised  by  her,  lost  much  of 
their  terror. 

Mrs.  Oliver  was  never  able  to  see 
any  great  sorrow  in  a  monthly  deficit  when 
Polly  seated  herself  before  her  cash-boxes 
and  explained  her  highly  original  financial 
operations.  One  would  be  indeed  in  dire 
distress  of  mind  could  one  refrain  from 
smiling  when,  having  made  the  preliminary 
announcement,  —  "  The  great  feminine  finan- 
cier of  the  century  is  in  her  counting-room  : 
let  the  earth  tremble  !  "  —  she  planted  her- 
self on  the  bed,  oriental  fashion,  took  pen- 
cil and  account-book  in  lap,  spread  cigar- 
box,  sugar-bowl,  and  ginger-jar  before  her 
on  the  pillows,  and  ruffled  her  hair  for  the 
approaching  contest. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

POLLY   TRIES   A   LITTLE   MISSIONARY  WORK. 

One  change  had  come  over  their  life  dur- 
ing these  months  which,  although  not  ex- 
plained in  Polly's  correspondence,  concerns 
our  little  circle  of  people  very  intimately. 

The  Olivers  had  been  in  San  Francisco 
over  a  month,  but  though  Edgar  Noble  had 
been  advised  of  the  fact,  he  had  not  come 
over  from  Berkeley  to  see  his  old  friends. 
Polly  had  at  length  written  him  a  note,  which 
still  remained  unanswered  when  she  started 
one  afternoon  on  a  trip  across  the  bay  for 
her  first  Spanish  conversation  with  Profes- 
sor Salazar.  She  had  once  visited  the  uni- 
versity buildings,  but  Professor  Salazar  lived 
not  only  at  some  distance  from  the  college, 
but  at  some  distance  from  everything  else. 
Still,  she  had  elaborate  written  directions  in 
her  pocket,  and  hoped  to  find  the  place  with- 
out difficulty. 

She  had  no  sooner  alighted  at  the  station 
than  she  felt  an  uneasy  consciousness  that 


70  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

it  was  not  the  right  one,  and  that  she  should 
have  gone  farther  before  leaving  the  railway. 
However,  there  was  no  certainty  about  it  in 
her  mind,  so  after  asking  at  two  houses  half 
a  mile  apart,  and  finding  that  the  inmates  had 
never  heard  of  Professor  Salazar's  existence, 
she  walked  down  a  shady  road,  hoping  to 
find  another  household  where  his  name  and 
fame  had  penetrated. 

The  appointed  hour  for  the  lessons  was 
half  past  three  on  Fridays,  but  it  was  after 
four,  and  Polly  seemed  to  be  walking  farther 
and  farther  away  from  civilization. 

"  I  shall  have  to  give  it  up,"  she  thought ; 
"  I  will  go  back  to  the  station  where  I  got 
off  and  wait  until  the  next  train  for  San 
Francisco  comes  along,  which  will  be  nobody 
knows  when.  How  provoking  it  is,  and 
how  stupid  I  am!  Professor  Salazar  will 
stay  at  home  for  me,  and  very  likely  Mrs. 
Salazar  has  made  butter-cakes  and  coffee, 
and  here  am  I  floundering  in  the  woods ! 
I  '11  sit  down  under  these  trees  and  do  a  bit 
of  Spanish,  while  I  'm  resting  for  the  walk 
back." 

Just  at  this  moment  a  chorus  of  voices 
sounded  in  the  distance,  then  some  loud 
talking,  then  more  singing. 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  71 

\  "It  is  some  of  the  students,"  thought 
Polly,  as  she  hastily  retired  behind  a  tree 
until  they  should  pass. 

But  unfortunately  they  did  not  pass. 
Just  as  they  came  opposite  her  hiding-place, 
they  threw  themselves  down  in  a  sunny  spot 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  road  and  lighted 
their  cigarettes. 

"  No  hurry !  "  said  one.  "  Let  's  take  it 
easy ;  the  train  does  n't  leave  till  4.50. 
Where  are  you  going,  Ned  ?  " 

"  Home,  I  suppose,  where  I  was  going 
when  you  met  me.  I  told  you  I  could  only 
walk  to  the  turn." 

"  Home  ?  No,  you  don't !  "  expostulated 
half  a  dozen  laughing  voices ;  "we  've  un- 
earthed the  would-be  hermit,  and  we  mean 
to  keep  him." 

"  Can't  go  with  you  to-night,  boys,  worse 
luck !  "  repeated  the  second  speaker.  "  Got 
to  cram  for  that  examination  or  be  plucked 
again  ;  and  one  more  plucking  will  settle  this 
child's  university  career  !  " 

"  Oh,  let  the  examinations  go  to  the  dick- 
ens !  What  's  the  use  ?  —  all  the  same  a 
hundred  years  hence.  The  idea  of  cram- 
ming Friday  night !     Come  on !  " 

"  Can't  do  it,  old  chaps  ;  but  next  time 
goes.     See  you  Monday.     Ta-ta !  " 


72  POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Polly  peeped  cautiously  from  behind  her 
tree. 

"  I  believe  that  voice  is  Edgar  Noble's,  or 
else  I  'm  very  much  mistaken.  I  thought  of 
it  when  I  first  heard  them  singing.  Yes,  it 
is!  Now,  those  hateful  boys  are  going  to 
get  him  into  trouble  !  " 

Just  at  this  moment  four  of  the  boys 
jumped  from  the  ground  and,  singing  vocif- 
erously — 

"  He  won't  go  home  any  more, 
He  won't  go  home  any  more, 
He  won't  go  home  any  more, 
Way  down  on  the  Bingo  farm  !  " 

rushed  after  young  Noble,  pinioned  him,  and 
brought  him  back. 

"  See  here,  Noble,"  expostulated  one  of 
them,  who  seemed  to  be  a  commanding 
genius  among  the  rest, —  "  see  here,  don't  go 
and  be  a  spoil-sport !  What  's  the  matter 
with  you  ?  We  're  going  to  chip  in  for  a 
good  dinner,  go  to  the  minstrels,  and  then, 
—  oh,  then  we  '11  go  and  have  a  game  of 
billiards.  You  play  so  well  that  you  won't 
lose  anything.  And  if  you  want  money, 
Will 's  flush,  he  '11  lend  you  a  '  tenner.'  You 
know  there  won't  be  any  fun  in  it  unless 
you  're  there !  We  11  get  the  last  boat  back 
to-night,  or  the  first  in  the  morning." 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  73 

A  letter  from  his  mother  lay  in  Edgar's 
pocket,  —  a  letter  which  had  brought  some- 
thing like  tears  to  his  eyes  for  a  moment, 
and  over  which  he  had  vowed  better  things. 
But  he  yielded,  nevertheless,  —  that  it  was 
with  reluctance  did  n't  do  any  particular 
good  to  anybody,  though  the  recording  angels 
may  have  made  a  note  of  it,  —  and  strolled 
along  with  the  other  students,  who  were  evi- 
dently in  great  glee  over  their  triumph. 

Meanwhile  Polly  had  been  plotting.  Her 
brain  was  not  a  great  one,  but  it  worked 
very  swiftly;  Dr.  George  called  it,  chaf- 
fingly,  a  small  mind  in  a  very  active  state. 
Scarcely  stopping  to  think,  lest  her  courage 
should  not  be  equal  to  the  strain  of  meeting 
six  or  eight  young  men  face  to  face,  she 
stepped  softly  out  of  her  retreat,  walked 
gently  down  the  road,  and  when  she  had 
come  within  ten  feet  of  the  group,  halted, 
and,  clearing  her  throat  desperately,  said, 
"  I  beg  your  pardon  "  — 

The  whole  party  turned  with  one  accord, 
a  good  deal  of  amazement  in  their  eyes,  as 
there  had  not  been  a  sign  of  life  in  the  road 
a  moment  before,  and  now  here  was  a  sort 
of  woodland  sprite,  a  "  nut-brown  maycle," 
with  a  remarkably  sweet  voice. 


74  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  but  can  you  tell 
me  the  way  to  Professor  Salazar's  house? 
Why"  (this  with  a  charming  smile  and 
expression  as  of  one  having  found  an  angel 
of  deliverance),  —  "  why,  it  is  — is  n't  it? — 
Edgar  Noble  of  Santa  Barbara  !  " 

Edgar,  murmuring  "Polly  Oliver,  by 
Jove  !  "  lifted  his  hat  at  once,  and  saying, 
"  Excuse  me,  boys,"  turned  back  and  gal- 
lantly walked  at  Polly's  side. 

"  Why,  Miss  Polly,  this  is  an  unexpected 
way  of  meeting  you !  " 

("  Very  unexpected,"  thought  Polly.) 
"  Is  it  not,  indeed  ?  I  wrote  you  a  note  the 
other  day,  telling  you  that  we  hoped  to  see 
you  soon  in  San  Francisco." 

"Yes,"  said  Edgar  ;  "I  did  n't  answer  it 
because  I  intended  to  present  myself  in  per- 
son to-morrow  or  Sunday.  What  are  you 
doing  in  this  vicinity  ?  "  he  continued,  "  or, 
to  put  it  poetically, 

Pray  why  are  you  loitering-  here,  pretty  maid  ?  " 

"  No  wonder  you  ask.  I  am  '  floundering,' 
at  present.  I  came  over  to  a  Spanish  lesson 
at  Professor  Salazar's,  and  I  have  quite  lost 
my  way.  If  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  put 
me  on  the  right  road  I  shall  be  very  much 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  75 

obliged,  though  I  don't  like  to  keep  you  from 
your  friends,"  said  Polly,  with  a  quizzical 
smile.  "  You  see  the  professor  won't  know 
why  I  missed  my  appointment,  and  I  can't 
bear  to  let  him  think  me  capable  of  neglect ; 
he  has  been  so  very  kind." 

"  But  you  can't  walk  there.  You  must 
have  gotten  off  at  the  wrong  station ;  it  is 
quite  a  mile,  even  across  the  fields." 

"  And  what  is  a  mile,  sir  ?  Have  you  for- 
gotten that  I  am  a  country  girl  ?  "  and  she 
smiled  up  at  him  brightly,  with  a  look  that 
challenged  remembrance. 

"  I  remember  that  you  could  walk  with 
any  of  us,"  said  Edgar,  thinking  how  the 
freckles  had  disappeared  from  Polly's  rose- 
leaf  skin,  and  how  particularly  fetching  she 
looked  in  her  brown  felt  sailor-hat.  "  Well, 
if  you  really  wish  to  go  there,  I  '11  see  you 
safely  to  the  house  and  take  you  over  to  San 
Francisco  afterward,  as  it  will  be  almost 
dark.  I  was  going  over,  at  any  rate,  and 
one  train  earlier  or  later  won't  make  any 
difference." 

("  Perhaps  it  won't  and  perhaps  it  will," 
thought  Polly.)  "  If  you  are  sure  it  won't 
be  too  much  trouble,  then  "  — 

"  Not  a  bit.     Excuse  me  a  moment  while 


76  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

I  run  back  and  exj)lain  the  matter  to  the 
boys." 

The  boys  did  not  require  any  elaborate 
explanation. 

Oh,  the  power  of  a  winsome  face!  No 
better  than  many  other  good  things,  but 
surely  one  of  them,  and  when  it  is  united 
to  a  fair  amount  of  goodness,  something  to 
be  devoutly  thankful  for.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  if  a  lumpish,  dumpish  sort  of  girl  (good 
as  gold,  you  know,  but  not  suitable  for  occa- 
sions when  a  fellow's  will  has  to  be  caught 
"  on  the  fly,"  and  held  until  it  settles  to  its 
work),  —  if  that  lumpish,  dumpish  girl  had 
asked  the  way  to  Professor  Salazar's  house, 
Edgar  Noble  would  have  led  her  courteously 
to  the  turn  of  the  road,  lifted  his  hat,  and 
wished  her  a  pleasant  journey. 

But  Polly  was  wearing  her  Sunday  dress 
of  brown  cloth  and  a  jaunty  jacket  trimmed 
with  sable  (the  best  bits  of  an  old  pelisse 
of  Mrs.  Oliver's).  The  sun  shone  on  the 
loose-dropping  coil  of  the  waving  hair  that 
was  only  caught  in  place  by  a  tortoise-shell 
arrow ;  the  wind  blew  some  of  the  dazzling 
tendrils  across  her  forehead ;  the  eyes  that 
glanced  up  from  under  her  smart  little  sailor- 
hat  were  as  blue  as  sapphires ;  and  Edgar, 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  77 

as  he  looked,  suddenly  feared  that  there 
might  be  vicious  bulls  in  the  meadows,  and 
did  n't  dare  as  a  gentleman  to  trust  Polly 
alone !  He  had  n't  remembered  anything 
special  about  her,  but  after  an  interval  of 
two  years  she  seemed  all  at  once  as  desira- 
ble as  dinner,  as  tempting  as  the  minstrels, 
almost  as  fascinating  as  the  billiards,  when 
one  has  just  money  enough  in  one's  pocket 
for  one's  last  week's  bills  and  none  at  all  for 
the  next ! 

The  boys,  as  I  say,  had  imagined  Edgar's 
probable  process  of  reasoning.  Polly  was 
standing  in  the  highroad  where  "  a  wayfar- 
ing man,  though  a  fool,"  could  look  at  her ; 
and  when  Edgar  explained  that  it  was  his 
duty  to  see  her  safely  to  her  destination, 
they  all  bowed  to  the  inevitable.  The  one 
called  Tony  even  said  that  he  would  be  glad 
to  "  swap  "  with  him,  and  the  whole  party 
offered  to  support  him.  in  his  escort  duty 
if  he  said  the  word.  He  agreed  to  meet 
the  boys  later,  as  Polly's  quick  ear  assured 
her,  and  having  behaved  both  as  a  man  of 
honor  and  knight  of  chivalry,  he  started 
unsuspectingly  across  the  fields  with  his 
would-be  guardian. 

She  darted  a  searching  look  at  him  as 
they  walked  along. 


78  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Oh,  how  old  and  '  gentlemanly '  you 
look,  Edgar!     I  feel  quite  afraid  of  you!  " 

"  I  'm  glad  you  do.  There  used  to  be  a 
painful  lack  of  reverence  in  your  manners, 
Miss  Polly." 

"There  used  to  be  a  painful  lack  of  po- 
liteness in  yours,  Mr.  Edgar.  Oh  dear,  I 
meant  to  begin  so  nicely  with  you  and  as- 
tonish you  with  my  new  grown-up  manners ! 
Now,  Edgar,  let  us  begin  as  if  we  had  just 
been  introduced ;  if  you  will  try  your  best 
not  to  be  provoking,  I  won't  say  a  single 
disagreeable  thing." 

"  Polly,  shall  I  tell  you  the  truth?  " 

"  You  might  try  ;  it  would  be  good  prac- 
tice even  if  you  did  n't  accomplish  anything." 

"  How  does  that  remark  conform  with 
your  late  promises  ?  However,  I  '11  be  for- 
giving and  see  if  I  receive  any  reward  ;  I  've 
tried  every  other  line  of  action.  What  I 
was  going  to  say  when  you  fired  that  last 
shot  was  this :  I  agree  with  Jack  Howard, 
who  used  to  say  that  he  would  rather  quar- 
rel with  you  than  be  friends  with  any  other 
girl." 

"  It  is  nice,"  said  Polly  complacently. 
"  I  feel  a  sort  of  pleasant  glow  myself,  when- 
ever I  've  talked  to  you  a  few  minutes  ;  but 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  79 

the  trouble  is  that  you  used  to  fan  that 
pleasant  glow  into  a  raging  heat,  and  then 
we  both  got  angry." 

"  If  the  present  '  raging  heat '  has  faded 
into  the  '  pleasant  glow,'  I  don't  mind  telling 
you  that  you  are  very  much  improved,"  said 
Edgar  encouragingly.  "  Your  temper  seems 
much  the  same,  but  no  one  who  knew  you  at 
fourteen  could  have  foreseen  that  you  would 
turn  out  so  exceedingly  well." 

"Do  you  mean  that  I  am  better  look- 
ing ?  "  asked  Polly,  with  the  excited  frank- 
ness of  sixteen  years. 

"  Exactly." 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you,  Edgar.  I  'm 
a  thousand  times  obliged.  I  've  thought  so 
myself,  lately  ;  but  it 's  worth  everything  to 
have  your  grown-up,  college  opinion.  Of 
course  red  hair  has  come  into  vogue,  that 's 
one  point  in  my  favor,  though  I  fear  mine 
is  a  little  vivid  even  for  the  fashion ;  Mar- 
gery has  done  a  water  color  of  my  head 
which  Phil  says  looks  like  the  explosion  of 
a  tomato.  Then  my  freckles  are  almost 
gone,  and  that  is  a  great  help  ;  if  you  exam- 
ine me  carefully  in  this  strong  light  you  can 
only  count  seven,  and  two  of  those  are  get- 
ting faint-hearted.      Nothing  can  be    done 


80  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

with  my  aspiring  nose.  I  've  tried  in  vain 
to  push  it  down,  and  now  I  'm  simply  living- 
it  down." 

Edgar  examined  her  in  the  strong  light 
mischievously.  "  Turn  your  profile,"  he  said. 
"  That 's  right ;  now,  do  you  know,  I  rather 
like  your  nose,  and  it 's  a  very  valuable 
index  to  your  disposition.  I  don't  know 
whether,  if  it  were  removed  from  your  face, 
it  would  mean  so  much ;  but  taken  in  con- 
nection with  its  surroundings,  it 's  a  very 
expressive  feature  ;  it  warns  the  stranger  to 
be  careful.  In  fact,  most  of  your  features 
are  danger  signals,  Polly ;  I  'm  rather  glad 
I  've  been  taking  a  course  of  popular  medi- 
cal lectures  on  First  Aid  to  the  Injured !  " 

And  so,  with  a  great  deal  of  nonsense  and 
a  good  sprinkling  of  quiet,  friendly  chat, 
they  made  their  way  to  Professor  Salazar's 
house,  proffered  Polly's  apologies,  and  took 
the  train  for  San  Francisco. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"WHERE  ignoeance  is  bliss." 

The  trip  from  Berkeley  to  San  Francisco 
was  a  brilliant  success  from  Edgar's  stand- 
point, but  Polly  would  have  told  you  that 
she  never  worked  harder  in  her  life. 

"  I  '11  just  say  '  How  do  you  do  ?  '  to  your 
mother,  and  then  be  off,"  said  Edgar,  as 
they  neared  the  house. 

"  Oh,  but  you  surely  will  stay  to  dinner 
with  us  !  "  said  Polly,  with  the  most  innocent 
look  of  disappointment  on  her  face,  —  a  look 
of  such  obvious  grief  that  a  person  of  any 
feeling  could  hardly  help  wishing  to  remove 
it,  if  possible.  "  You  see,  Edgar  "  (putting 
the  latch-key  in  the  door),  "mamma  is  so 
languid  and  ill  that  she  cannot  indulge  in 
many  pleasures,  and  I  had  quite  counted  on 
you  to  amuse  her  a  little  for  me  this  evening. 
But  come  up,  and  you  shall  do  as  you  like 
after  dinner." 

"  I  've  brought  you  a  charming  surprise, 
mamacita ! "  called  Polly  from  the  stairs ; 


82  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM-, 

"  an  old  friend  whom  I  picked  up  in  the 
woods  like  a  wild-flower  and  brought  home 
to  you."  ("  Wild-flower  is  a  good  name  for 
him,"  she  thought.) 

Mrs.  Oliver  was  delighted  to  see  Edgar, 
but  after  the  first  greetings  were  over,  Polly 
fancied  that  she  had  not  closed  the  front 
door,  and  Edgar  offered  to  go  down  and 
make  sure. 

In  a  second  Polly  crossed  the  room  to  her 
mother's  side,  and  whispered  impressively, 
"  Edgar  must  be  kept  here  until  after  mid- 
night ;  I  have  good  reasons  that  I  will  ex- 
plain when  we  are  alone.  Keep  him  some- 
how, —  anyhow !  " 

Mrs.  Oliver  had  not  lived  sixteen  years 
with  Polly  without  learning  to  leap  to  con- 
clusions. "  Run  down  and  ask  Mrs.  Howe 
if  she  will  let  us  have  her  hall-bedroom  to- 
night," she  replied ;  "  nod  your  head  for  yes 
when  you  come  back,  and  I  '11  act  accord- 
ingly ;  I  have  a  request  to  make  of  Edgar, 
and  am  glad  to  have  so  early  an  opportunity 
of  talking  with  him." 

"  We  did  close  the  door,  after  all,"  said 
Edgar,  coming  in  again.  "  What  a  pretty 
little  apartment  you  have  here  !  I  have  n't 
seen   anything   so   cosy   and   homelike   for 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  83 

"  Then  make  yourself  at  home  in  it,"  said 
Mrs.  Oliver,  while  Polly  joined  in  with, 
"  Is  n't  that  a  pretty  tire  in  the  grate  ?  I  '11 
give  you  one  rose-colored  lamp  with  your 
firelight.  Here,  mamacita,  is  the  rocker  for 
you  on  one  side;  here,  Edgar,  is  our  one 
4  man's  chair  '  for  you  on  the  other.  Stretch 
out  your  feet  as  lazily  as  you  like  on  my 
new  goatskin  rug.  You  are  our  only  home- 
friend  in  San  Francisco ;  and  oh,  how 
mamma  will  spoil  you  whenever  she  has  the 
chance  !  Now  talk  to  each  other  cosily  while 
the  4  angel  of  the  house '  cooks  dinner." 

It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  as  Mrs. 
Chadwick's  monthly  remittances  varied  from 
sixty  to  seventy-five  dollars,  but  never  reached 
the  promised  eighty-five,  Polly  had  dismissed 
little  Yung  Lee  for  a  month,  two  weeks  of 
which  would  be  the  Christmas  vacation,  and 
hoped  in  this  way  to  make  up  deficiencies. 
The  sugar-bowl  and  ginger-jar  were  stuffed 
copiously  with  notes  of  hand  signed  "  Cigar- 
box,"  but  held  a  painfully  small  amount  of 
cash. 

"  Can't  I  go  out  and  help  Polly?"  asked 
Edgar,  a  little  later.  "  I  should  never  have 
agreed  to  stay  and  dine  if  I  had  known  that 
she  was  the  cook." 


84  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Go  out,  by  all  means ;  but  you  need  n't 
be  anxious.  Ours  is  a  sort  of  doll-house- 
keeping. We  buy  everything  cooked,  as 
far  as  possible,  and  Polly  makes  play  of  the 
rest.  It  all  seems  so  simple  and  interesting 
to  plan  for  two  when  we  have  been  used  to 
twelve  and  fourteen." 

"  May  I  come  in  ?  "  called  Edgar  from  the 
tiny  dining-room  to  Polly,  who  had  laid 
aside  her  Sunday  finery  and  was  clad  in 
brown  Scotch  gingham  mostly  covered  with 
ruffled  apron. 

"  Yes,  if  you  like ;  but  you  won't  be 
spoiled  here,  so  don't  hope  it.  Mamma  and 
I  are  two  very  different  persons.  Tie  that 
apron  round  your  waist;  I've  just  begun 
the  salad-dressing ;  is  your  intelligence  equal 
to  stirring  it  round  and  round  and  pouring 
in  oil  drop  by  drop,  while  I  take  up  the 
dinner  ?  " 

"  Fully.  Just  try  me.  I  '11  make  it  stand 
on  its  head  in  three  minutes  !  " 

Meanwhile  Polly  set  on  the  table  a  platter 
of  lamb-chops,  some  delicate  potato  chips 
which  had  come  out  of  a  pasteboard  box,  a 
dish  of  canned  French  peas,  and  a  mound  of 
currant- jelly. 

"That  is  good,"  she  remarked  critically, 


EDGAR  HELPS   POLLY   GET  DINNER 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  85 

coming  back  to  her  apprentice,  who  was 
toiling  with  most  unnecessary  vigor,  so  that 
the  veins  stood  out  boldly  on  his  forehead. 
"  You  're  really  not  stupid,  for  a  boy ;  and 
you  have  n't  '  made  a  mess,'  which  is  more 
than  I  hoped.  Now,  please  pour  the  dressing 
over  those  sliced  tomatoes ;  set  them  on  the 
side-table  in  the  banquet-hall ;  put  the  plate 
in  the  sink  (don't  stare  at  me  !)  ;  open  a  bot- 
tle of  Apollinaris  for  mamma,  —  dig  out  the 
cork  with  a  hairpin,  I  've  lost  the  corkscrew ; 
move  three  chairs  up  to  the  dining-table  (oh, 
it 's  so  charming  to  have  three  !) ;  light  the 
silver  candlesticks  in  the  centre  of  the  table ; 
go  in  and  bring  mamma  out  in  style ;  see  if 
the  fire  needs  coal;  and  I'll  be  ready  by 
that  time." 

"  I  can  never  remember,  but  I  fly !  Oh, 
what  an  excellent  slave-driver  was  spoiled  in 
you !  "  said  Edgar. 

The  simple  dinner  was  delicious,  and  such 
a  welcome  change  from  the  long  boarding- 
house  table  at  which  Edgar  had  eaten  for 
over  a  year.  The  candles  gave  a  soft  light ; 
there  was  a  bowl  of  yellow  flowers  under- 
neath them.  Mrs.  Oliver  looked  like  an 
elderly  Dresden-china  shepherdess  in  her 
pale  blue  wrapper,  and  Polly  did  n't  suffer 


86  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

from  the  brown  gingham,  with  its  wide 
collar  and  cuffs  of  buff  embroidery,  and  its 
quaint  full  sleeves.  She  had  burned  two 
small  blisters  on  her  wrist  ;  they  were 
scarcely  visible  to  the  naked  eye,  but  she 
succeeded  in  obtaining  as  much  sympathy 
for  them  as  if  they  had  been  mortal  wounds. 
Her  mother  murmured  '  Poor  darling  wrist ' 
and  'kissed  the  place  to  make  it  well.'  Ed- 
gar found  a  bit  of  thin  cambric  and  bound 
up  the  injured  member  with  cooling  flour, 
Mistress  Polly  looking  demurely  on,  think- 
ing meanwhile  how  much  safer  he  was  with 
them  than  with  the  objectionable  Tony. 
After  the  lamb -chops  and  peas  had  been 
discussed,  Edgar  insisted  on  changing  the 
plates  and  putting  on  the  tomato  salad ;  then 
Polly  officiated  at  the  next  course,  bringing 
in  coffee,  sliced  oranges,  and  delicious  cake 
from  the  neighboring  confectioner's. 

"  Can't  I  wash  the  dishes  ?  "  asked  Edgar, 
when  the  feast  was  ended. 

"  They  are  not  going  to  be  washed,  at  least 
by  us.  This  is  a  great  occasion,  and  the 
little  girl  downstairs  is  coming  up  to  clear 
away  the  dinner  things." 

Then  there  was  the  pleasant  parlor  again, 
and  when  the    candles  were  lighted  in  the 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  87 

old-fashioned  mirror  over  the  fireplace,  every- 
thing wore  a  festive  appearance.  The  guitar 
was  brought  out,  and  Edgar  sang  college 
songs  till  Mrs.  Oliver  grew  so  bright  that 
she  even  hummed  a  faint  second  from  her 
cosy  place  on  the  sofa. 

And  then  Polly  must  show  Edgar  how 
she  had  made  Austin  Dobson's  "  Milkmaid 
Song"  fit  "Nelly  Bly,"  and  she  must  teach 
him  the  pretty  words. 

"  Across  the  grass, 

I  see  her  pass, 
She  comes  with  tripping-  pace ; 

A  maid  I  know, 

And  March  winds  blow 
Her  hair  across  her  face. 

Hey!  Dolly!     Ho!  Dolly! 

Dolly  shall  he  mine, 
Before  the  spray  is  white  with  May 

Or  blooms  the  eglantine." 

By  this  time  the  bandage  had  come  off 
the  burned  wrist,  and  Edgar  must  bind  it 
on  again,  and  Polly  shrieked  and  started 
when  he  pinned  the  end  over,  and  Edgar 
turned  pale  at  the  thought  of  his  brutal 
awkwardness,  and  Polly  burst  into  a  ringing 
peal  of  laughter  and  confessed  that  the  pin 
had  n't  touched  her,  and  Edgar  called  her  a 
deceitful  little  wretch.     This  naturally  occu- 


88  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

pied  some  time,  and  then  there  was  the  sec- 
ond verse  :  — 

"  The  March  winds  hlow, 

I  watch  her  go, 
Her  eye  is  blue  and  clear ; 

Her  cheek  is  brown 

And  soft  as  down 
To  those  who  see  it  near. 

Hey!  DoUy!     Ho!  Dolly! 

Dolly  shall  be  mine, 
Before  the  spray  is  white  with  May 

Or  blooms  the  eglantine." 

After  this  singing-lesson  was  over  it  was 
nearly  eleven  o'clock,  but  up  to  this  time 
Edgar  had  shown  no  realizing  sense  of  his 
engagements. 

"The  dinner  is  over,  and  the  theatre 
party  is  safe,"  thought  Polly.  "  Now  comes 
the  '  tug  of  war,'  that  mysterious  game  of 
billiards." 

But  Mrs.  Oliver  was  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion. When  Edgar  looked  at  his  watch,  she 
said :  "  Polly,  run  and  get  Mrs.  Noble's  last 
letter,  dear ; "  and  then,  when  she  was  alone 
with  Edgar,  "  My  dear  boy,  I  have  a  favor 
to  ask  of  you,  and  you  must  be  quite  frank 
if  it  is  not  convenient  for  you  to  grant  it. 
As  to-morrow  will  be  Saturday,  perhaps  you 
have  no  recitations,  and  if  not,  would  it 
trouble  you  too  much  to  stay  here  all  night 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  89 

and  attend  to  something  for  me  in  the  morn- 
ing? I  will  explain  the  matter,  and  then 
you  can  answer  me  more  decidedly.  I  have 
received  a  letter  from  a  Washington  friend 
who  seems  to  think  it  possible  that  a  pension 
may  be  granted  to  me.     He  sends  a  letter 

of  introduction  to  General  M ,  at    the 

Presidio,  who,  he  says,  knew  Colonel  Oliver, 
and  will  be  able  to  advise  me  in  the  matter. 
I  am  not  well  enough  to  go  there  for  some 
days,  and  of  course  I  do  not  like  to  send 
Polly  alone.  If  you  could  go  out  with  her, 
give  him  the  letter  of  introduction,  and  ask 
him  kindly  to  call  upon  us  at  his  leisure,  and 
find  out  also  if  there  is  any  danger  in  a  lit- 
tle delay  just  now  while  I  am  ill,  it  would 
be  a  very  great  favor." 

"  Of  course  I  will,  with  all  the  pleasure  in 
life,  Mrs.  Oliver,"  replied  Edgar,  with  the 
unspoken  thought,  "  Confound  it !  There 
goes  my  game;  I  promised  the  fellows  to 
be  there,  and  they  '11  guy  me  for  staying 
away !  However,  there  's  nothing  else  to  do. 
I  should  n't  have  the  face  to  go  out  now 
and  come  in  at  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning." 

Polly  entered  just  then  with  the  letter. 

"  Edgar  is  kind  enough  to  stay  all  night 


90  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

with  us,  dear,  and  take  you  to  the  Presidio 
on  the  pension  business  in  the  morning.  If 
you  will  see  that  his  room  is  all  right,  I  will 
say  good-night  now.  Our  guest-chamber  is 
downstairs,  Edgar ;  I  hope  you  will  be  very 
comfortable.  Breakfast  at  half  past  eight, 
please." 

When  the  door  of  Mrs.  Howe's  bedroom 
closed  on  Edgar,  Polly  ran  upstairs,  and 
sank  exhausted  on  her  own  bed. 

"  Now,  mamma, '  listen  to  my  tale  of  woe  ! ' 
I  got  off  at  the  wrong  station,  —  yes,  it  was 
stupid ;  but  wait :  perhaps  I  was  led  to  be 
stupid.  I  lost  my  way,  could  n't  find  Pro- 
fessor Salazar's  house,  could  n't  find  any- 
thing else.  As  I  was  wandering  about  in 
a  woodsy  road,  trying  to  find  a  house  of 
some  kind,  I  heard  a  crowd  of  boys  singing 
vociferously  as  they  came  through  the  trees. 
I  did  n  't  care  to  meet  them,  all  alone  as  I 
was,  though  of  course  there  was  nothing 
to  be  afraid  of,  so  I  stepped  off  the  road 
behind  some  trees  and  bushes  until  they 
should  pass.  It  turned  out  to  be  half  a  dozen 
university  students,  and  at  first  I  did  n't 
know  that  Edgar  was  among  them.  They 
were  teasing  somebody  to  go  over  to  San 
Francisco  for    a   dinner,  then  to  the    min- 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  91 

strels,  and  then  to  wind  up  with  a  game  of 
billiards,  and  other  gayeties  which  were  to 
be  prolonged  indefinitely.  What  dreadfid 
things  may  have  been  included  I  don't 
know.  A  wretch  named  'Tony'  did  most 
of  the  teasing,  and  he  looked  equal  to  plan- 
ning any  sort  of  mischief.  All  at  once  I 
thought  I  recognized  a  familiar  voice.  I 
peeped  out,  and  sure  enough  it  was  Edgar 
Noble  whom  they  were  coaxing.  He  did  n't 
want  to  go  a  bit,  —  I  '11  say  that  for  him,  — 
but  they  were  determined  that  he  should. 
I  didn't  mind  his  going  to  dinners  and 
minstrels,  of  course,  but  when  they  spoke  of 
being  out  until  after  midnight,  or  to-morrow 
morning,  and  when  one  beetle-browed,  vul- 
gar-looking creature  offered  to  lend  him  a 
1  tenner,'  I  thought  of  the  mortgage  on  the 
Noble  ranch,  and  the  trouble  there  would  be 
if  Edgar  should  get  into  debt,  and  I  felt  I 
must  do  something  to  stop  him,  especially 
as  he  said  himself  that  everything  depended 
on  his  next  examinations." 

"  But  how  did  you  accomplish  it?  "  asked 
Mrs.  Oliver,  sitting  up  in  bed  and  glowing 
with  interest. 

"  They  sat  down  by  the  roadside,  smoking 
and  talking  it  over.     There  was  n't  another 


92  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

well-born,  well-bred  looking  young  man  in 
the  group.  Edgar  seemed  a  prince  among 
them,  and  I  was  so  ashamed  of  him  for  hav- 
ing such  friends  !  I  was  afraid  they  would 
stay  there  until  dark,  but  they  finally  got 
up  and  walked  toward  the  station.  I  waited 
a  few  moments,  went  softly  along  behind 
them,  and  when  I  was  near  enough  I  cleared 
my  throat  (oh,  it  was  a  fearful  moment !), 
and  said,  '  I  beg  your  pardon,  but  can  you 
direct  me  to  Professor  Salazar's  house  ? ' 
and  then  in  a  dramatic  tone,  '  Why,  it  is  — 
is  n't  it  ?  —  Edgar  Noble  of  Santa  Barbara ! ' 
He  joined  me,  of  course.  Oh,  I  can't  be- 
gin to  tell  you  all  the  steps  of  the  affair, 
I  am  so  exhausted.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
he  walked  to  Professor  Salazar's  with  me  to 
make  my  excuses,  came  over  to  town  with 
me,  came  up  to  the  house,  I  trembling  for 
fear  he  would  slip  through  my  fingers  at 
any  moment ;  then,  you  know,  he  stayed 
to  dinner,  I  in  terror  all  the  time  as  the 
fatal  hours  approached  and  departed;  and 
there  he  is,  'the  captive  of  my  bow  and 
spear,'  tucked  up  in  Mrs.  Howe's  best  bed, 
thanks  to  your  ingenuity !  I  could  never 
have  devised  that  last  plot,  mamma  ;  it  was 
a  masterpiece !  " 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  93 

"  You  did  a  kind  deed,  little  daughter,"  said 
Mrs.  Oliver,  with  a  kiss.  "  But  poor  Mrs. 
Noble  !  What  can  we  do  for  her  ?  We 
cannot  play  policemen  all  the  time.  We  are 
too  far  from  Edgar  to  know  his  plans,  and 
any  interference  of  which  he  is  conscious 
would  be  worse  than  nothing.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  he  is  far  wrong  yet.  He  certainly 
never  appeared  better ;  so  polite  and  thought- 
ful and  friendly.  Well,  we  must  let  the  mor- 
row bring  counsel." 

"  I  hope  that  smirking,  odious  Tony  is  dis- 
appointed ! "  said  Polly  viciously,  as  she 
turned  out  the  gas.  "  I  distinctly  heard  him 
tell  Edgar  to  throw  a  handkerchief  over  my 
hair  if  we  should  pass  any  wild  cattle  !  How 
I  'd  like  to  banish  him  from  this  vicinity  ! 
Invite  Edgar  to  dinner  next  week,  mamma  ; 
not  too  soon,  or  he  will  suspect  missionary 
work.  Boys  hate  to  be  missionaried,  and 
I  'm  sure  I  don't  blame  them.  I  hope  he  is 
happy  downstairs  in  his  little  prison  !  He 
ought  to  be,  if  ignorance  is  bliss  !  " 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

TWO   FIRESIDE   CHATS. 

It  was  five  o'clock  Saturday  afternoon, 
and  Edgar  Noble  stood  on  the  Olivers'  steps, 
Mrs.  Oliver  waving  her  hand  from  an  upper 
window,  and  Polly  standing  on  the  stairs 
saying  good-by. 

"  Come  over  to  dinner  some  night,  won't 
you,  Edgar?"  she  asked  carelessly;  "any 
night  you  like,  Wednesday,  Thursday, 
Friday." 

"  Wednesday,  please,  as  it  comes  first !  " 
said  Edgar  roguishly.  "  May  I  help  cook 
it?" 

"  You  not  only  may,  but  you  must. 
Good-by." 

Polly  went  upstairs,  and,  after  washing 
the  lunch-dishes  in  a  reflective  turn  of  mind 
which  did  away  with  part  of  the  irksome- 
ness  of  the  task,  went  into  the  parlor  and 
sat  on  a  stool  at  her  mother's  feet. 

A  soft  rain  had  begun  to  fall ;  the  fire 
burned  brightly ;  the  bamboo  cast  feathery 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  95 

shadows  on  the  wall ;  from  a  house  across 
the  street  came  the  sound  of  a  beautiful 
voice  singing,  — 

"  Oh,  holy  night !   the  stars  are  brightly  shining. 
It  is  the  night  of  the  dear  Saviour's  birth !  " 

All  was  peaceful  and  homelike ;  if  it 
would  only  last,  thought  Polly. 

"  You  are  well  to-night,  mamacita." 

A  look  of  repressed  pain  crossed  Mrs. 
Oliver's  face  as  she  smoothed  the  bright 
head  lying  in  her  lap.  "  Very  comfortable, 
dear,  and  very  happy  ;  as  who  would  not  be, 
with  such  a  darling  comfort  of  a  daughter  ? 
Always  sunny,  always  helpful,  these  last  dear 
weeks,  —  cook,  housekeeper,  nurse,  banker, 
all  in  one,  with  never  a  complaint  as  one 
burden  after  another  is  laid  on  her  willing 
shoulders." 

"  Don't,  mamma  !  "  whispered  Polly,  seek- 
ing desperately  for  her  handkerchief.  "  I 
can  stand  scolding,  but  compliments  always 
make  me  cry  ;  you  know  they  do.  If  Ferdi- 
nand and  Isabella  had  told  Columbus  to 
discover  my  pocket  instead  of  America,  he 
would  n't  have  been  as  famous  as  he  is  now ; 
there,  I  've  found  it.  Now,  mamma,  you 
know  your  whole  duty  is  to  be  well,  well, 
well,  and  I  '11  take  care  of  everything  else." 


96  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  I  've  been  thinking  about  Edgar,  Polly, 
and  I  have  a  plan,  but  I  shall  not  think 
of  urging  it  against  your  will ;  you  are  the 
mistress  of  the  house  nowadays." 

"  I  know  what  it  is,"  sighed  Polly.  "  You 
think  we  ought  to  take  another  boarder.  A 
desire  for  boarders  is  like  a  taste  for  strong 
drink ;  once  acquired,  it  is  almost  impossi- 
ble to  eradicate  it  from  the  system." 

"I  do  think  we  ought  to  take  this  boarder. 
Not  because  it  will  make  a  difference  in  our 
income,  but  I  am  convinced  that  if  Edgar 
can  have  a  pleasant  home  and  our  compan- 
ionship just  at  this  juncture,  he  will  break 
away  from  his  idle  habits,  and  perhaps  his 
bad  associations,  and  take  a  fresh  start.  I 
feel  that  we  owe  it  to  our  dear  old  friends 
to  do  this  for  them,  if  we  can.  Of  course, 
if  it  proves  too  great  a  tax  upon  you,  or  if  I 
should  have  another  attack  of  illness,  it  will 
be  out  of  the  question ;  but  who  knows  ? 
perhaps  two  or  three  months  will  accomplish 
our  purpose.  He  can  pay  me  whatever 
he  has  been  paying  in  Berkeley,  less  the 
amount  of  his  fare  to  and  fro.  We  might 
have  little  Yung  Lee  again,  and  Mrs.  Howe 
will  be  glad  to  rent  her  extra  room.  It  has 
a  fireplace,  and  will  serve  for  both  bedroom 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  97 

and  study,  if  we  add  a  table  and  student- 
lamp." 

"I  don't  believe  lie  will  come,"  said 
Polly.  "  We  are  all  very  well  as  a  diver- 
sion, but  as  a  constancy  we  should  pall  upon 
him.  I  never  could  keep  up  to  the  level  I 
have  been  maintaining  for  the  last  twenty- 
four  hours,  that  is  certain.  It  is  nothing 
short  of  degradation  to  struggle  as  hard  to 
amuse  a  boy  as  I  have  struggled  to  amuse 
Edgar.  I  don't  believe  he  could  endure 
such  exhilaration  week  after  week,  and  I  am 
very  sure  it  would  kill  me.  Besides,  he  will 
fancy  he  is  going  to  be  watched  and  re- 
ported at  headquarters  in  Santa  Barbara  !  " 

"  I  think  very  likely  you  are  right ;  but 
perhaps  I  can  put  the  matter  so  that  it  will 
strike  him  in  some  other  light." 

"  Very  well,  mamacita ;  I  'm  resigned.  It 
will  break  up  all  our  nice  little  two-ing,  but 
we  will  be  his  guardian  angel.  I  will  be 
his  guardian  and  you  his  angel,  and  oh, 
how  he  would  dislike  it  if  he  knew  it !  But 
wait  until  odious  Mr.  Tony  meets  him  to- 
night! What  business  is  it  of  his  if  my 
hair  is  red !  When  he  chaffs  him  for  break- 
ing his  appointment,  I  dare  say  we  shall 
never  see  him  again." 


98  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  You  are  so  jolly  comfortable  here ! 
This  house  is  the  next  best  thing  to  mother," 
said  Edgar,  with  boyish  heartiness,  as  he 
stood  on  the  white  goatskin  with  his  back 
to  the  Olivers'  cheerful  firejxLace. 

It  was  Wednesday  evening  of  the  next 
week.  Polly  was  clearing  away  the  dinner 
things,  and  Edgar  had  been  arranging  Mrs. 
Oliver's  chair  and  pillows  and  footstool  like 
the  gentle  young  knight  he  was  by  nature. 

What  wonder  that  all  the  fellows,  even 
"  smirking  Tony,"  liked  him  and  sought  his 
company  ?  He  who  could  pull  an  oar,  throw 
a  ball,  leap  a  bar,  ride  a  horse,  or  play  a 
game  of  skill  as  if  he  had  been  born  for 
each  particular  occupation,  —  what  wonder 
that  the  ne'er-do-wells  and  idlers  and  scamps 
and  dullards  battered  at  his  door  continually 
and  begged  him  to  leave  his  books  and  come 
out  and  "  stir  up  things  "  ! 

"  If  you  think  it  is  so  '  jolly,'  "  said  Mrs. 
Oliver,  "  how  would  you  like  to  come  here 
and  live  with  us  awhile  ?  " 

This  was  a  bombshell.  The  boy  hesitated 
naturally,  being  taken  quite  by  surprise. 
("  Confound  it !  "  he  thought  rapidly,  "  how 
shall  I  get  out  of  this  scrape  without  being- 
impolite  !       They   would  n't    give    me    one 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  99 

night  out  a  week  if  I  came  !  ")  "  I  'd  like  it 
immensely,  you  know,"  lie  said  aloud,  "  and 
it 's  awfully  kind  of  you  to  propose  it,  and  I 
appreciate  it,  but  I  don't  think  —  I  don't 
see,  that  is,  how  I  could  come,  Mrs.  Oliver. 
In  the  first  place,  I  'm  quite  sure  my  home 
people  would  dislike  my  intruding  on  your 
privacy  ;  and  then,  —  well,  you  know  I 
am  out  in  the  evening  occasionally,  and 
should  n't  like  to  disturb  you  ;  besides,  I  'm 
sure  Miss  Polly  has  her  hands  full  now." 

"  Of  course  you  would  be  often  out  in  the 
evening,  though  I  don't  suppose  you  are  a 
4  midnight  reveler.'  You  would  simply  have 
a  latch-key  and  go  out  and  come  in  as  you 
liked.  Mrs.  Howe's  room  is  very  pleasant,  as 
you  know ;  and  you  could  study  there  before 
your  open  fire,  and  join  us  when  you  felt  like 
it.  Is  it  as  convenient  and  pleasant  for  you 
to  live  on  this  side  of  the  bay,  and  go  back 
and  forth?" 

"  Oh  yes !  I  don't  mind  that  part  of  it." 
("  This  is  worse  than  the  Inquisition ;  I 
don't  know  but  that  she  will  get  me  in  spite 
of  everything !  ") 

"Oh  dear!"  thought  Mrs.  Oliver,  "he 
does  n't  want  to  come  ;  and  I  don't  want 
him  to  come,  and  I  must  urge  him  to  come 


100  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

against  his  will.  How  very  disagreeable 
missionary  work  is,  to  be  sure !  I  sympa- 
thize with  him,  too.  He  is  afraid  of  petti- 
coat government,  and  fears  that  he  will  lose 
some  of  his  precious  liberty.  If  I  had  fifty 
children,  I  believe  I  should  want  them  all 
girls." 

"Besides,  dear  Mrs.  Oliver,"  continued 
Edgar,  after  an  awkward  pause,  "  I  don't 
think  you  are  strong  enough  to  have  me 
here.  I  believe  you  're  only  proposing  it 
for  my  good.  You  know  that  I  'm  in  a  for- 
lorn students'  boarding-house,  and  you  are 
anxious  to  give  me  'all  the  comforts  of  a 
home  '  for  my  blessed  mother's  sake,  regard- 
less of  your  own  discomforts." 

"  Come  here  a  moment  and  sit  beside  me 
on  Polly's  footstool.  You  were  nearly  three 
years  old  when  Polly  was  born.  You  were 
all  staying  with  me  that  summer.  Did  you 
know  that  you  were  my  first  boarders  ? 
You  were  a  tiny  fellow  in  kilts,  very  much 
interested  in  the  new  baby,  and  very  anx- 
ious to  hold  her.  I  can  see  you  now  rocking 
the  cradle  as  gravely  as  a  man.  Polly  has 
hard  times  and  many  sorrows  before  her, 
Edgar !  You  are  old  enough  to  see  that  I 
cannot  stay  with  her  much  longer." 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  101 

Edgar  was  too  awed  and  too  greatly  moved 
to  answer. 

"  I  should  be  very  glad  to  have  you  with 
us,  both  because  I  think  we  could  in  some 
degree  take  the  place  of  your  mother  and 
Margery,  and  because  I  should  be  glad  to 
feel  that  in  any  sudden*  emergency,  which 
I  do  not  in  the  least  expect,  we  should  have 
a  near  friend  to  lean  upon  ever  so  little." 

Edgar's  whole  heart  went  out  in  a  burst 
of  sympathy  and  manly  tenderness.  In  that 
moment  he  felt  willing  to  give  up  every  per- 
sonal pleasure,  if  he  might  lift  a  feather's 
weight  of  care  from  the  fragile  woman  who 
spoke  to  him  with  such  sweetness  and  trust. 
For  there  is  nothing  hopeless  save  meanness 
and  poverty  of  nature  ;  and  any  demand  on 
Edgar  Noble's  instinct  of  chivalrous  protec- 
tion would  never  be  discounted. 

"  I  will  come  gladly,  gladly,  Mrs.  Oli- 
ver," he  said,  "  if  only  I  can  be  of  service  ; 
though  I  fear  it  will  be  all  the  other  way. 
Please  borrow  me  for  a  son,  just  to  keep  me 
in  training,  and  I  '11  try  to  bear  my  honors 
worthily." 

"  Thank  you,  dear  boy.  Then  it  is  settled, 
if  you  are  sure  that  the  living  in  the  city 
will  not  interfere  with  your  studies  ;  that  is 


102  POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

the  main  thing.  We  all  look  to  you  to  add 
fresh  laurels  to  your  old  ones.  Are  you 
satisfied  with  your  college  life  thus  far  ?  " 

("  They  have  n't  told  her  anything.  That 's 
good,"  thought  Edgar.)  "  Oh  yes  ;  fairly 
well !  I  don't  —  I  don't  go  in  for  being  a 
4  dig,'  Mrs.  Oliver.  I  shall  never  be  the 
valedictorian,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing ;  it 
does  n't  pay.  Who  ever  hears  of  valedicto- 
rians twenty  years  after  graduation  ?  Class 
honors  don't  amount  to  much." 

"  I  suppose  they  can  be  overestimated ; 
but  they  must  prove  some  sort  of  excellence 
which  will  stand  one  in  good  stead  in  after 
years.  I  should  never  advise  a  boy  or  girl 
to  work  for  honors  alone ;  but  if  after  doing 
one's  very  best  the  honors  come  naturally, 
they  are  very  pleasant." 

"  Half  the  best  scholars  in  our  class  are 
prigs,"  said  Edgar  discontentedly.  "Always 
down  on  the  live  fellows  who  want  any  sport. 
Sometimes  I  wish  I  had  never  gone  to  col- 
lege at  all.  Unless  you  deny  yourself  every 
pleasure,  and  live  the  life  of  a  hermit,  you 
can't  take  any  rank.  My  father  expects  me 
to  get  a  hundred  and  one  per  cent,  in  every 
study,  and  thinks  I  ought  to  rise  with  the 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  103 

lark  and  go  to  bed  with  the  chickens.  I 
don't  know  whether  he  ever  sowed  any  wild 
oats ;  if  he  did,  it  was  so  long  ago  that 
he  has  quite  forgotten  I  must  sow  mine 
some  time.  He  ought  to  be  thankful  they 
are  such  a  harmless  sort." 

"  I  don't  understand  boys  very  well,"  said 
Mrs.  Oliver  smilingly.  "  You  see,  I  never 
have  had  any  to  study,  and  you  must  teach 
me  a  few  things.  Now,  about  this  matter 
of  wild  oats.  Why  is  it  so  necessary  that 
they  should  be  sown  ?  Is  Margery  sow- 
ing hers  ?  I  don't  know  that  Polly  feels 
bound  to  sow  any." 

"  I  dare  say  they  are  not  necessities," 
laughed  Edgar,  coloring.  "  Perhaps  they 
are  only  luxuries." 

Mrs.  Oliver  looked  at  the  fire  soberly.  "  I 
know  there  may  be  plenty  of  fine  men  who 
have  a  discreditable  youth  to  look  back 
upon,  —  a  youth  finally  repented  of  and 
atoned  for ;  but  that  is  rather  a  weary  pro- 
cess, I  should  think,  and  they  are  surely 
no  stronger  men  because  of  the  '  wild  oats,' 
but  rather  in  spite  of  them." 

"  I  suppose  so,"  sighed  Edgar  ;  "  but  it 's 
so   easy  for  women  to  be  good!      I  know 


104  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

you  were  born  a  saint,  to  begin  with.  You 
don't  know  what  it  is  to  be  in  college,  and 
to  want  to  do  everything  that  you  can't  and 
ought  n't,  and  nothing  that  you  can  and 
ought,  and  get  all  tangled  up  in  things  you 
never  meant  to  touch.  However,  we  '11 
see!" 

Polly  peeped  in  at  the  door  very  softly. 
"  They  have  n't  any  light ;  that  's  favorable. 
He  's  sitting  on  my  footstool ;  he  need  n't 
suppose  he  is  going  to  have  that  place !  I 
think  she  has  her  hand  on  his  arm,  —  yes,  she 
has !  And  he  is  stroking  it !  Oh,  you  poor 
innocent  child,  you  do  not  realize  that  that 
soft  little  hand  of  my  mother's  never  lets  go  ! 
It  slips  into  a  five  and  three-quarters  glove, 
but  you'll  be  surprised,  Mr.  Edgar,  when 
you  discover  you  cannot  get  away  from  it. 
Very  well,  then  ;  it  is  settled.  I  '11  go  back 
and  put  the  salt  fish  in  soak  for  my  board- 
er's breakfast.  I  seem  to  have  my  hands 
rather  full !  —  a  house  to  keep,  an  invalid 
mother,  and  now  a  boarder.  The  very  thing 
I  vowed  that  I  never  would  have  —  another 
boarder;  what  grandmamma  would  have 
called  an  '  unstiddy  '  boy  boarder  !  " 

And  as  Polly  clattered  the  pots  and  pans, 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  105 

the  young  heathen  in  the  parlor  might  have 
heard  her  fresh  voice  singing  with  great 
energy :  — 

"  Shall  we,  whose  souls  are  lighted 
With  wisdom  from  on  high,  — 
Shall  we   to  men   benighted 
The  lamp  of  life  deny  ?  " 


CHAPTER  IX. 

HARD   TIMES. 

The  new  arrangement  worked  exceedingly 
well. 

As  to  Edgar's  innermost  personal  feelings, 
no  one  is  qualified  to  speak  with  any  author- 
ity. Whether  he  experienced  a  change  of 
heart,  vowed  better  things,  prayed  to  be  de- 
livered from  temptation,  or  simply  decided  to 
turn  over  a  new  leaf,  no  one  knows ;  the  prin- 
cipal fact  in  his  life,  at  this  period,  seems  to 
have  been  an  unprecedented  lack  of  time  for 
any  great  foolishness. 

Certain  unpleasant  things  had  transpired 
on  that  eventful  Friday  night  when  he  had 
missed  his  appointment  with  his  fellow-stu- 
dents, which  had  resulted  in  an  open  scandal 
too  disagreeable  to  be  passed  over  by  the  col- 
lege authorities  ;  the  redoubtable  Tony  had 
been  returned  with  thanks  to  his  fond  par- 
ents in  a  distant  part  of  the  state,  and  two 
others  had  been  temporarily  suspended. 

Edgar  Noble  was  not  too  blind  to  see  the 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  107 

happy  chance  that  interfered  with  his  pres- 
ence on  that  occasion,  and  was  sensible 
enough  to  realize  that,  had  he  been  impli- 
cated in  the  least  degree  (he  scorned  the 
possibility  of  his  taking  any  active  part  in 
such  scurrilous  proceedings),  he  would  prob- 
ably have  shared  Tony's  fate. 

Existence  was  wearing  a  particularly  dis- 
mal aspect  on  that  afternoon  when  Edgar 
had  met  Polly  Oliver  in  the  Berkeley  woods. 
He  felt  "nagged,"  injured,  blue,  out  of  sorts 
with  fate.  He  had  not  done  anything  very 
bad,  he  said  to  himself;  at  least,  nothing 
half  so  bad  as  lots  of  other  fellows,  and  yet 
everybody  frowned  on  him.  His  father  had, 
in  his  opinion,  been  unnecessarily  severe ; 
while  his  mother  and  sister  had  wept  over 
him  (by  letter)  as  if  he  were  a  thief  and  a 
forger,  instead  of  a  fellow  who  was  simply 
having  a  "  little  fling."  He  was  annoyed 
at  the  conduct  of  Scott  Burton,  —  "king  of 
snobs  and  prigs,"  he  named  him,  —  who  had 
taken  it  upon  himself  to  inform  Philip  Noble 
of  his  (Edgar's)  own  personal  affairs ;  and 
he  was  enraged  at  being  preached  at  by 
that  said  younger  brother. 

But  of  late  everything  had  taken  an  up- 
ward turn,  and  by  way  of  variety,  existence 


108  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

turned  a  smiling  face  toward  him.  He  had 
passed  his  examinations,  most  unexpectedly 
to  himself,  with  a  respectable  percentage  to 
spare.  There  was  a  time  when  he  would 
have  been  ashamed  of  this  meagre  result. 
He  was  now,  just  a  little,  but  the  feeling  was 
somewhat  submerged  in  his  gratitude  at 
having  "  squeaked  through"  at  all. 

A  certain  inspired  Professor  Hope,  who 
wondered  what  effect  encouragement  would 
have  on  a  fellow  who  did  n't  deserve  any,  but 
might  possibly  need  it,  came  up  to  him  after 
recitations,  one  day,  and  said  :  — 

"  Noble,  I  want  to  congratulate  you  on 
your  papers  in  history  and  physics.  They 
show  signal  ability.  There  is  a  plentiful  lack 
of  study  evinced,  but  no  want  of  grasp  or 
power.  You  have  talents  that  ought  to  put 
you  among  the  first  three  men  in  the  Uni- 
versity, sir.  I  do  not  know  whether  you 
care  to  take  the  trouble  to  win  such  a  place 
(it  is  a  good  deal  of  trouble),  but  you  can 
win  it  if  you  like.  That 's  all  I  have  to  say, 
Noble.    Good-morning !  " 

This  unlooked-for  speech  fell  like  balm  on 
Edgar's  wounded  self-respect,  and  made  him 
hold  his  head  higher  for  a  week ;  and,  natu- 
rally, while  his  head  occupied  this  elevated 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  109 

position,  he  was  obliged  to  live  up  to  it.  He 
also  felt  obliged  to  make  an  effort,  rather  re- 
luctantly, to  maintain  some  decent  standing 
in  the  classes  of  Professor  Hope,  even  if  he 
shirked  in  all  the  rest. 

And  now  life,  on  the  whole,  save  for  one 
carking  care  that  perched  on  his  shoulder  by 
day  and  sat  on  his  eyelids  at  night,  was  very 
pleasant ;  though  he  coidd  not  flatter  himself 
that  he  was  absolutely  a  free  agent. 

After  all  ordinary  engagements  of  concerts, 
theatres,  lectures,  or  what  not,  he  entered 
the  house  undisturbed,  and  noiselessly  sought 
his  couch.  But  one  night,  when  he  ventured 
to  stay  out  till  after  midnight,  just  as  he  was 
stealing  in  softly,  Mrs.  Oliver's  gentle  voice 
came  from  the  head  of  the  stairs,  saying, 
"  Good-night,  Edgar,  the  lamp  is  lighted  in 
your  room !  " 

Edgar  closed  his  door  and  sat  down  dis- 
consolately on  the  bed,  cane  in  hand,  hat  on 
the  back  of  his  head.  The  fire  had  burned 
to  a  few  glowing  coals ;  his  slippers  lay  on 
the  hearth,  and  his  Christmas  "  easy  jacket " 
hung  over  the  back  of  his  great  armchair ; 
his  books  lay  open  under  the  student-lamp, 
and  there  were  two  vases  of  fresh  flowers  in 
the  room :  that  was  Polly's  doing. 


110  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Mrs.  Oliver  was  awake  and  listening  for 
me;  worrying  about  me,  probably;  I  dare 
say  she  thought  I  'd  been  waylaid  by  ban- 
dits," he  muttered  discontentedly.  "  I  might 
as  well  live  in  the  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association  !  I  can't  get  mad  with  an  angel, 
but  I  did  n't  intend  being  one  myself !  Good 
gracious  !  why  don't  they  hire  me  a  nurse 
and  buy  me  a  perambulator !  " 

But  all  the  rest  was  perfect ;  and  his  chief 
chums  envied  him  after  they  had  spent  an 
evening  with  the  Olivers.  Polly  and  he  had 
ceased  to  quarrel,  and  were  on  good,  frank, 
friendly  terms.  "  She  is  no  end  of  fun," 
he  would  have  told  you ;  "  has  no  nonsensi- 
cal young-lady  airs  about  her,  is  always  ready 
for  sport,  sings  all  kinds  of  songs  from  grave 
to  gay,  knows  a  good  joke  when  you  tell 
one,  and  keeps  a  fellow  up  to  the  mark  as 
well  as  a  maiden  aunt." 

All  this  was  delightful  to  everybody  con- 
cerned. Meanwhile  the  household  affairs 
were  as  troublesome  as  they  could  well  be. 
Mrs.  Oliver  developed  more  serious  symp- 
toms, and  Dr.  George  asked  the  San  Fran- 
cisco physician  to  call  to  see  her  twice  a  week 
at  least.  The  San  Francisco  physician 
thought  "  a  year  at  Carlsbad,  and  a  year  at 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  Ill 

Nice,  would  be  a  good  thing ; "  but,  failing 
these,  he  ordered  copious  quantities  of  ex- 
pensive drugs,  and  the  reserve  fund  shrank, 
though  the  precious  three  hundred  and 
twelve  dollars  was  almost  intact. 

Poor  Mrs.  Chadwick  sent  tearful  monthly 
letters,  accompanied  by  checks  of  fifty  to 
sixty-five  dollars.  One  of  the  boarders  had 
died;  two  had  gone  away;  the  season  was 
poor ;  Ah  Foy  had  returned  to  China ;  Mr. 
Greenwood  was  difficult  about  his  meals; 
the  roof  leaked ;  provisions  were  dear ;  Mrs. 
Holmes  in  the  next  street  had  decided  to 
take  boarders ;  Eastern  people  were  grum- 
bling at  the  weather,  saying  it  was  not  at  all 
as  reported  in  the  guide-books;  real-estate 
and  rents  were  very  low ;  she  hoped  to  be 
able  to  do  better  next  month;  and  she 
was  Mrs.  Oliver's  "  affectionate  Clementine 
Churchill  Chadwick." 

Polly  had  held  a  consultation  with  the 
principal  of  her  school,  who  had  assured  her 
that  as  she  was  so  well  in  advance  of  her 
class,  she  could  be  promoted  the  next  term, 
if  she  desired.  Accordingly,  she  left  school 
in  order  to  be  more  with  her  mother,  and  as 
she  studied  with  Edgar  in  the  evening,  she 
really  lost  nothing. 


112  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Mrs.  Howe  remitted  four  dollars  from  the 
monthly  rent,  in  consideration  of  Spanish  les- 
sons given  to  her  two  oldest  children.  This 
experiment  proved  a  success,  and  Polly  next 
accepted  an  offer  to  come  three  times  a  week 
to  the  house  of  a  certain  Mrs.  Baer  to  amuse 
(instructively)  the  four  little  Baer  cubs, 
while  the  mother  Baer  wrote  a  "  History 
of  the  Dress-Reform  Movement  in  English- 
Speaking  Nations." 

For  this  service  Polly  was  paid  ten  dollars 
a  month  in  gold  coin,  while  the  amount  of 
spiritual  wealth  which  she  amassed  could  not 
possibly  be  estimated  in  dollars  and  cents. 
The  ten  dollars  was  very  useful,  for  it  pro- 
cured the  services  of  a  kind,  strong  woman, 
who  came  on  these  three  afternoons  of  Polly's 
absence,  put  the  entire  house  in  order,  did 
the  mending,  rubbed  Mrs.  Oliver's  tired 
back,  and  brushed  her  hair  until  she  fell 
asleep. 

So  Polly  assisted  in  keeping  the  wolf 
from  the  door,  and  her  sacrifices  watered  her 
young  heart  and  kept  it  tender.  "  Money 
may  always  be  a  beautiful  thing.  It  is  we 
who  make  it  grimy." 

Edgar  shared  in  the  business  conferences 
now.     He  had  gone  into  convulsions  of  mirth 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  113 

over  Polly's  system  of  accounts,  and  insisted, 
much  against  her  will,  in  teaching  her  book- 
keeping, striving  to  convince  her  that  the 
cash  could  be  kept  in  a  single  box,  and  the 
accounts  separated  in  a  book. 

These  lessons  were  merry  occasions,  for 
there  was  a  conspicuous  cavity  in  Polly's 
brain  where  the  faculty  for  mathematics 
should  have  been. 

"  Your  imbecility  is  so  unusual  that  it  's 
a  positive  inspiration,"  Edgar  would  say. 
"  It  is  n't  like  any  ordinary  stupidity ;  there 
does  n't  seem  to  be  any  bottom  to  it,  you 
know ;  it  's  abnormal,  it  's  fascinating, 
Polly!" 

Polly  glowed  under  this  unstinted  praise. 
"  I  am  glad  you  like  it,"  she  said.  "  I  always 
like  to  have  a  thing  first-class  of  its  kind, 
though  I  can't  pride  myself  that  it  compares 
with  your  Spanish  accent,  Edgar ;  that 
stands  absolutely  alone  and  unapproacha- 
ble for  badness.  I  don't  worry  about  my 
mathematical  stupidity  a  bit  since  I  read 
Dr.  Holmes,  who  says  that  everybody  has  an 
idiotic  area  in  his  mind." 

There  had  been  very  little  bookkeeping 
to-night.  It  was  raining  in  torrents.  Mrs. 
Oliver  was  talking  with  General  M in 


114  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

the  parlor,  while  Edgar  and  Polly  were  study- 
ing in  the  dining-room. 

Polly  laid  down  her  book  and  leaned  back 
in  her  chair.  It  had  been  a  hard  day,  and 
it  was  very  discouraging  that  a  new  year 
should  come  to  one's  door  laden  with  vexa- 
tions and  anxieties,  when  everybody  natu- 
rally expected  new  years  to  be  happy, 
through  January  and  February  at  least. 

"  Edgar,"  she  sighed  plaintively,  "  I  find 
that  this  is  a  very  difficult  world  to  live  in, 
sometimes." 

Edgar  looked  up  from  his  book,  and 
glanced  at  her  as  she  lay  back  with  closed 
eyes  in  the  Chinese  lounging-chair.  She 
was  so  pale,  so  tired,  and  so  very,  very  pretty 
just  then,  her  hair  falling  in  bright  confusion 
round  her  face,  her  whole  figure  relaxed 
with  weariness,  and  her  lips  quivering  a 
little,  as  if  she  would  like  to  cry  if  she 
dared. 

Polly  with  dimples  playing  hide  and  seek 
in  rosy  cheeks,  with  dazzling  eyes,  and 
laughing  lips,  and  saucy  tongue,  was  suffi- 
ciently captivating  ;  but  Polly  with  bright 
drops  on  her  lashes,  with  a  pathetic  droop 
in  the  corners  of  her  mouth  and  the  suspi- 
cion of  a  tear  in  her  voice,  —  this  Polly 
was  irresistible. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  115 

"  What  's  the  matter,  pretty  Poll  ?  " 

"  Nothing  specially  new.  The  Baer  cnbs 
were  naughty  as  little  demons  to-day.  One 
of  them  had  a  birthday-party  yesterday,  with 
four  kinds  of  frosted  cake.  Mrs.  Baer's 
system  of  management  is  n't  like  mine,  and 
until  I  convince  the  children  I  mean  what  I 
say,  they  give  me  the  benefit  of  the  doubt. 
The  Baer  place  is  so  large  that  Mrs.  Baer 
never  knows  where  disobedience  may  occur, 
and  that  she  may  be  prepared  she  keeps 
one  of  Mr.  Baer's  old  slippers  on  the  front 
porch,  one  in  the  carriage-house,  one  in  the 
arbor,  one  in  the  nursery,  and  one  under  the 
rose  hedge  at  the  front  gate.  She  showed 
me  all  these  haunts,  and  told  me  to  make 
myself  thoroughly  at  home.  I  felt  tempted 
to-day,  but  I  resisted." 

"You  are  working  too  hard,  Polly.  I 
propose  we  do  something  about  Mrs.  Chad- 
wick.  You  are  bearing  all  the  brunt  of 
other  people's  faults  and  blunders." 

"  But,  Edgar,  everything  is  so  mixed : 
Mrs.  Chadwick's  year  of  lease  is  n't  over ;  I 
suppose  she  cannot  be  turned  out  by  main 
force,  and  if  we  should  ask  her  to  leave  the 
house  it  might  go  unrented  for  a  month  or 
two,  and  the  loss  of  that  money  might  be  as 


116  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

much  as  the  loss  of  ten  or  fifteen  dollars  a 
month  for  the  rest  of  the  year.  I  could  com- 
plain of  her  to  Dr.  George,  but  there  again 
I  am  in  trouble.  If  he  knew  that  we  are  in 
difficulties,  he  would  offer  to  lend  us  money 
in  an  instant,  and  that  would  make  mamma 
ill,  I  am  sure ;  for  we  are  under  all  sorts  of 
obligations  to  him  now,  for  kindnesses  that 
can  never  be  repaid.  Then,  too,  he  advised 
us  not  to  let  Mrs.  Chadwick  have  the  house. 
He  said  that  she  had  n't  energy  enough  to 
succeed ;  but  mamma  was  so  sorry  for  her, 
and  so  determined  to  give  her  a  chance, 
that  she  persisted  in  letting  her  have  it. 
We  shall  have  to  find  a  cheaper  flat,  by  and 
by,  for  I  've  tried  every  other  method  of 
economizing,  for  fear  of  making  mamma 
worse  with  the  commotion  of  moving." 


CHAPTER  X. 
EDGAR   GOES   TO    CONFESSION. 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  make  it  harder,  Polly,  and 
you  and  your  mother  must  be  frank  with  me, 
and  turn  me  out  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  the 
first  moment  I  become  a  nuisance.  Will 
you  promise  ?  " 

"  You  are  a  help  to  us,  Edgar ;  we  told 
you  so  the  other  night.  We  could  n't  have 
Yung  Lee  unless  you  lived  with  us,  and  I 
could  n't  earn  any  money  if  I  had  to  do  all 
the  housework." 

"  I  'd  like  to  be  a  help,  but  I  'm  so 
helpless !  " 

"  We  are  all  poor  together  just  now,  and 
that  makes  it  easier." 

"  I  am  worse  than  poor!  "  Edgar  declared. 

"  What  can  be  worse  than  being  poor  ?  " 
asked  Polly,  with  a  sigh  drawn  from  the 
depths  of  her  boots. 

"  To  be  in  debt,  "  said  Edgar,  who  had 
not  the  slightest  intention  of  making  this 
remark  when  he  opened  his  lips. 


118  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Now  the  Olivers  had  only  the  merest 
notion  of  Edgar's  college  troubles;  they 
knew  simply  what  the  Nobles  had  told  them, 
that  he  was  in  danger  of  falling  behind  his 
class.  This,  they  judged,  was  a  contingency 
no  longer  to  be  feared ;  as  various  remarks 
dropped  by  the  students  who  visited  the 
house,  and  sundry  bits  of  information  con- 
tributed by  Edgar  himself,  in  sudden  bursts 
of  high  spirits,  convinced  them  that  he  was 
regaining  his  old  rank,  and  certainly  his 
old  ambition. 

"To  be  in  debt,"  repeated  Edgar  dog- 
gedly, "  and  to  see  no  possible  way  out  of 
it.  Polly,  I  'm  in  a  peck  of  trouble  !  I  've 
lost  money,  and  I  'm  at  my  wits'  end  to  get 
straight  again !  " 

"  Lost  money  ?  How  much  ?  Do  you 
mean  that  you  lost  your  pocket-book  ?  " 

"  No,  no  ;  not  in  that  way." 

"  You  mean  that  you  spent  it,"  said  Polly. 
"  You  mean  you  overdrew  your  allowance." 

"  Of  course  I  did.  Good  gracious,  Polly  ! 
there  are  other  ways  of  losing  money  than 
by  dropping  it  in  the  road.  I  believe  girls 
don't  know  anything  more  about  the  world 
than  the  geography  tells  them,  —  that  it 's  a 
round  globe  like  a  ball  or  an  orange !  " 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.         119 

"  Don't  be  impolite.  The  less  they  know 
about  the  old  world  the  better  they  get  on, 
I  dare  say.  Your  colossal  fund  of  worldly 
knowledge  does  n't  seem  to  make  you  very 
happy,  just  now.  How  could  you  lose  your 
money,  I  ask  ?  You  're  nothing  but  a  stu- 
dent, and  you  are  not  in  any  business,  are 
you?" 

"  Yes,  I  am  in  business,  and  pretty  bad 
business  it  is,  too." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  I  've  been  winding  myself 
up  into  a  hard  knot,  the  last  six  months,  and 
the  more  I  try  to  disentangle  myself,  the 
worse  the  thing  gets.  My  allowance  is  n't 
half  enough ;  nobody  but  a  miser  could  live 
on  it.  I  've  been  unlucky,  too.  I  bought  a 
dog,  and  some  one  poisoned  him  before  I 
could  sell  him ;  then  I  lamed  a  horse  from 
the  livery-stable,  and  had  to  pay  dam- 
ages ;  and  so  it  went.  The  fellows  all  kept 
lending  me  money,  rather  than  let  me  stay 
out  of  the  little  club  suppers,  and  since  I  've 
shut  down  on  expensive  gayeties  they've 
gone  back  on  me,  and  all  want  their  money  at 
once ;  so  does  the  livery-stable  keeper,  and 
the  owner  of  the  dog,  and  a  dozen  other  in- 
dividuals ;  in  fact,  the  debtors'  prison  yawns 
before  me." 


120  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Upon  my  word,  I  'm  ashamed  of  you !  " 
said  Polly,  with  considerable  heat.  "To 
waste  money  in  that  way,  when  you  knew 
perfectly  well  you  could  n't  afford  it,  was  — 
well,  it  was  downright  dishonest,  that 's  what 
it  was !  To  hear  you  talk  about  dogs,  and 
lame  horses,  and  club  suppers,  anybody  would 
suppose  you  were  a  sporting  man!  Pray, 
what  else  do  they  do  in  that  charming  col- 
lege set  of  yours  ?  " 

"  I  might  have  known  you  would  take 
that  tone,  but  I  did  n't,  somehow.  I  told 
you  just  because  I  thought  you  were  the  one 
girl  in  a  thousand  who  would  understand 
and  advise  a  fellow  when  he  knows  he 's 
made  a  fool  of  himself  and  acted  like  a  cur ! 
I  did  n't  suppose  you  would  call  hard  names, 
and  be  so  unsympathizing,  after  all  we  have 
gone  through  together !  " 

"  I  'm  not !  —  I  did  n't !  —  I  won't  do  it 
again  !  "  said  Polly  incoherently,  as  she  took 
a  straight  chair,  planted  her  elbows  on  the 
table,  and  leaned  her  chin  in  her  two  palms. 
"  Now  let 's  talk  about  it ;  tell  me  everything 
quickly.     How  much  is  it?  " 

"Nearly  two  hundred  dollars!  Don't 
shudder  so  provokingly,  Polly  ;  that  's  a 
mere  bagatelle   for  a  college   man,   but   I 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  121 

know  it 's  a  good  deal  for  me,  —  a  good  deal 
more  than  I  know  how  to  get,  at  all  events." 

"  Where  is  the  debtors'  prison  ?  "  asked 
Polly  in  an  awestruck  whisper. 

"  Oh,  there  is  n't  any  such  thing  nowadays ! 
I  was  only  chaffing;  but  of  course,  the  men 
to  whom  I  am  in  debt  can  apply  to  father, 
and  get  me  in  a  regular  mess.  I  've  pawned 
my  watch  to  stave  one  of  them  off.  You  see, 
Polly,  I  would  rather  die  than  do  it ;  never- 
theless, I  would  write  and  tell  father  every- 
thing, and  ask  him  for  the  money,  but  cir- 
cumstances conspire  just  at  this  time  to 
make  it  impossible.  You  know  he  bought 
that  great  ranch  in  Yentura  county  with 
Albert  Harding  of  New  York.  Harding 
has  died  insolvent,  and  father  has  to  make 
certain  payments  or  lose  control  of  a  valua- 
ble property.  It^'s  going  to  make  him  a  rich 
man  some  time,  but  for  a  year  or  two  we 
shall  have  to  count  every  penny.  Of  course 
the  fruit  crop  this  season  has  been  the  worst 
in  ten  years,  and  of  course  there  has  been  a 
frost  this  winter,  the  only  severe  one  within 
the  memory  of  the  oldest  inhabitant,  — 
that 's  the  way  it  always  is,  —  and  there  I 
am  !     I  suppose  you  despise  me,  Polly  ?  "i 

"Yes,   I   do!"  (hotly)  — " No,  I   don't 


122  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

altogether,  and  I  'm  not  good  enough  myself 
to  be  able  to  despise  people.  Besides,  you 
are  not  a  despisable  boy.  You  were  born 
manly  and  generous  and  true-hearted,  and 
these  hateful  things  that  you  have  been 
doing  are  not  a  part  of  your  nature  a  bit ; 
but  I  'm  ashamed  of  you  for  yielding  to  bad 
impulses  when  you  have  so  many  good  ones, 
and  —  oh  dear  !  —  I  do  that  very  same  thing 
myself,  now  that  I  stop  to  think  about  it. 
But  how  could  you,  you,  Edgar  Noble,  take 
that  evil-eyed,  fat-nosed,  common  Tony  Sell- 
ing for  a  friend  ?     I  wonder  at  you  !  " 

"  He  is  n't  so  bad  in  some  ways.  I  owe 
him  eighty  dollars  of  that  money,  and  he  says 
he  '11  give  me  six  months  to  pay  it." 

"I'm  glad  he  has  some  small  virtues," 
Polly  replied  witheringly.  "  Now,  what  can 
we  do,  Edgar?  Let  us  think.  What  can, 
what  can  we  do?"  and  she  leaned  forward 
reflectively,  clasping  her  knee  with  her  hands 
and  wrinkling  her  brow  with  intense  thought. 

That  little  "  we  "  fell  on  Edgar's  loneli- 
ness of  spirit  consolingly;  for  it  adds" a  new 
pang  to  self -distrust  when  righteous  peojrie 
withdraw  from  one  in  utter  disdain,  even  if 
they  are  "  only  girls  "  who  know  little  of  a 
boy's  temptations. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  123 

"  If  you  can  save  something  each  month 
out  of  your  allowance,  Edgar,''  said  Polly, 
finally,  with  a  brighter  look,  "  I  can  spare 
fifty  or  even  seventy -five  dollars  of  our 
money,  and  you  may  pay  it  back  as  you  can. 
We  are  not  likely  to  need  it  for  several 
months,  and  your  father  and  mother  ought 
not  to  be  troubled  with  this  matter,  now  that 
it 's  over  and  done  with." 

The  blood  rushed  to  Edgar's  face  as  he 
replied  stiffly  :  "  I  may  be  selfish  and  reck- 
lessly extravagant,  but  I  don't  borrow  money 
from  girls.  If  you  wanted  to  add  the  last 
touch  to  my  shame,  you  've  done  it.  Don't 
you  suppose  I  have  eyes,  Polly  Oliver? 
Don't  you  suppose  I  've  hated  myself  ever 
since  I  came  under  this  roof,  when  I  have 
seen  the  way  you  worked  and  planned  and 
plotted  and  saved  and  denied  yourself  ? 
Don't  you  suppose  I  've  looked  at  you  twenty 
times  a  day,  and  said  to  myself,  '  You  mis- 
erable, selfish  puppy,  getting  yourself  and 
everybody  who  cares  for  you  into  trouble, 
just  look  at  that  girl  and  be  ashamed  of 
yourself  down  to  the  ground  ! '  And  now 
you  offer  to  lend  me  money  !  Oh,  Polly,  I 
wouldn't  have  believed  it  of  you!  " 

Polly  felt  convicted  of  sin,  although  she 


124  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

was  not  very  clear  as  to  the  reason.  She 
blushed  as  she  said  hastily,  "  Your  mother 
has  been  a  very  good  friend  to  us,  Edgar ; 
why  should  n't  we  help  you  a  little,  just  for 
once  ?  Now,  let  us  go  in  to  see  mamma  and 
talk  it  all  over  together !  " 

"  If  you  pity  me,  Polly,  don't  tell  her ;  I 
could  not  bear  to  have  that  saint  upon  earth 
worried  over  my  troubles ;  it  was  mean 
enough  to  add  a  feather's  weight  to  yours." 

"  Well,  we  won't  do  it,  then,"  said  Polly, 
with  maternal  kindness  in  her  tone.  "Do 
stop  pacing  up  and  down  like  a  caged  pan- 
ther. We  '11  find  some  other  way  out  of 
the  trouble ;  but  boys  are  such  an  anxiety ! 
Do  you  think,  Edgar,  that  you  have  re- 
formed?" 

"  Bless  your  soul !  I  've  kept  within  my 
allowance  for  two  or  three  months.  As 
Susan  Nipper  says,  1 1  may  be  a  camel,  but 
I  'm  not  a  dromedary  ! '  When  I  found  out 
where  I  was,  I  stopped ;  I  had  to  stop,  and 
I  knew  it.  I  'm  all  right  now,  thanks  to  — 
several  things.  In  fact,  I  've  acquired  a 
kind  of  appetite  for  behaving  myself  now, 
and  if  the  rascally  debts  were  only  out  of 
the  way,  I  should  be  the  happiest  fellow  in 
the  universe." 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  125 

"You  cannot  apply  to  your  father,  so 
there  is  only  one  thing  to  do,  —  that  is,  to 
earn  the  money." 

"  But  how,  when  I  'm  in  the  class-room 
three  fourths  of  the  day  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Polly  hopelessly. 
"  I  can  tell  you  what  to  do,  but  not  how  to 
do  it ;  I  'm  nothing  but  a  miserable  girl." 

"  I  must  stay  in  college,  and  I  must  dig 
and  make  up  for  lost  time  ;  so  most  of  my 
evenings  will  be  occupied." 

"  You  must  put  all  your  '  musts  '  together," 
said  Polly  decisively,  "  and  then  build  a 
bridge  over  them,  or  tunnel  through  them, 
or  span  them  with  an  arch.  We  '11  keep 
thinking  about  it,  and  I'm  sure  something 
will  turn  up ;  I  'm  not  discouraged  a  bit. 
You  see,  Edgar,"  and  Polly's  face  flushed 
with  feeling  as  she  drew  patterns  on  the 
tablecloth  with  her  tortoise-shell  hairpin,  — 
"  you  see,  of  course,  the  good  fairies  are 
not  going  to  leave  you  in  the  lurch  when 
you  've  turned  your  back  on  the  ugly  temp- 
tations, and  are  doing  your  very  best.  And 
now  that  we  've  talked  it  all  over,  Edgar, 
I  'm  not  ashamed  of  you  !  Mamma  and  I 
have  been  so  proud  of  your  successes  the 

you 


126  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Of  course,"  said  Edgar  dolefully ;  "  be- 
cause she  knows  only  the  best." 

"  But  I  know  the  best  and  the  worst  too, 
and  I  believe  in  you  !  It  seems  to  me  the 
best  is  always  the  truest  part  of  one,  after 
all.  No,  we  are  not  going  to  be  naughty 
any  more ;  we  are  going  to  earn  that  hate- 
fid  Tony's  money ;  we  are  going  to  take  all 
the  class  honors,  just  for  fun,  not  because 
we  care  for  such  trifles,  and  we  are  going 
home  for  the  summer  holidays  in  a  blaze  of 
glory  J" 

Edgar  rose  with  a  lighter  heart  in  his 
breast  than  he  had  felt  there  for  many  a 
week.  "  Good-night,  Parson  Polly,"  he  said 
rather  formally,  for  he  was  too  greatly 
touched,  to  be  able  to  command  his  tones ; 
"  add  your  prayers  to  your  sermons,  and 
perhaps  you  '11  bring  the  black  sheep  safely 
into  the  fold." 

The  quick  tears  rushed  to  Polly's  eyes  ; 
for  Edgar's  stiff  manner  sat  curiously  on 
him,  and  she  feared  she  had  annoyed  him  by 
too  much  advice.  "  Oh,  Edgar,"  she  said, 
with  a  quivering  lip,  "  I  did  n't  mean  to  pose 
or  to  preach !  You  know  how  full  of  f aidts 
I  am,  and  if  I  were  a  boy  I  should  be  worse  ! 
I  was  only  trying  to  help  a  little,  even  if  I 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  127 

am  younger  and  a  girl !  Don't  —  don't 
think  I  was  setting  myself  up  as  better  than 
you ;  that 's  so  mean  and  conceited  and 
small !  Edgar  dear,  I  am  so  proud  to  think 
you  told  me  your  troubles  ;  don't  turn  away 
from  me,  or  I  shall  think  you  are  sorry  you 
trusted  me  !  "  and  Polly  laid  a  persuasive, 
disarming  hand  on  the  lad's  shoulder. 

Suddenly  Edgar's  heart  throbbed  with  a 
new  feeling.  He  saw  as  in  a  vision  the 
purity,  fidelity,  and  tender  yearning  of  a 
true  woman's  nature  shining  through  a  girl's 
eyes.  In  that  moment  he  wished  as  never  be- 
fore to  be  manly  and  worthy.  He  seemed  all 
at  once  to  understand  his  mother,  his  sister, 
all  women  better,  and  with  a  quick  impulsive 
gesture  which  he  would  not  have  understood 
a  month  before,  he  bent  his  head  over  as- 
tonished Polly's  hand,  kissed  it  reverently, 
then  opened  the  door  and  went  to  his  room 
without  a  word. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE   LADY   IN    BLACK. 

"  I  've  had  a  little  adventure,"  said  Polly 
to  her  mother  one  afternoon.  "  I  went  out, 
for  the  sake  of  the  ride,  on  the  Sutter  Street 
cable -cars  with  Milly  Foster.  When  we 
came  to  the  end  of  the  line,  Milly  walked 
down  to  Geary  Street  to  take  her  car  home. 
I  went  with  her  to  the  corner,  and  as  I  was 
coming  back  I  saw  a  lady  in  black  alight- 
ing from  an  elegant  carriage.  She  had  a 
coachman  and  a  footman,  both  with  weeds 
on  their  hats,  and  she  seemed  very  sad  and 
grave ;  but  she  had  such  a  sweet,  beautiful 
face  that  I  was  sorry  for  her  the  first  moment 
I  looked  at  her.  She  walked  along  in  front 
of  me  toward  the  cemetery,  and  there  we 
met  those  boys  that  stand  about  the  gate 
with  bouquets.  She  glanced  at  the  flowers 
as  if  she  would  like  to  buy  some,  but  you 
know  how  hideous  they  always  are,  every 
color  of  the  rainbow  crowded  in  tightly 
together,  and  she  looked  away,  dissatisfied. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  129 

I  don't  know  why  she  had  n't  brought  some 
with  her,  —  she  looked  rich  enough  to  buy 
a  whole  conservatory ;  perhaps  she  had  n't 
expected  to  drive  there.  However,  Milly 
Foster  had  given  me  a  whole  armful  of 
beautiful  flowers,  —  you  know  she  has  a 
4  white  garden  : '  there  were  white  sweet  peas, 
Lamarque  roses,  and  three  stalks  of  snowy 
Eucharist  lilies.  I  need  n't  tell  my  own 
mother  that  I  did  n't  stop  to  think  twice  ;  I 
just  stepped  up  to  her  and  said,  '  I  should 
like  to  give  you  my  flowers,  please.  I  don't 
need  them,  and  I  am  sure  they  are  just 
sweet  and  lovely  enough  for  the  place  you 
want  to  lay  them.' 

"  The  tears  came  into  her  eyes,  —  she  was 
just  ready  to  cry  at  anything,  you  know,  — 
and  she  took  them  at  once,  and  said,  squeez- 
ing my  hand  very  tightly,  '  I  will  take  them, 
dear.  The  grave  of  my  own,  and  my  only,  lit- 
tle girl  lies  far  away  from  this,  —  the  snow  is 
falling  on  it  to-day,  —  but  whenever  I  can- 
not give  the  flowers  to  her,  I  always  find  the 
resting-places  of  other  children,  and  lay  them 
there.  I  know  it  makes  her  happy,  for  she 
was  born  on  Christmas  Day,  and  she  was 
full  of  the  Christmas  spirit,  always  thinking 
of  other  people,  never  of  herself.' 


130  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  She  did  look  so  pale,  and  sad,  and  sweet, 
that  I  began  to  think  of  you  without  your 
troublesome  Polly,  or  your  troublesome  Polly 
without  you;  and  she  was  -pleased  with 
the  flowers  and  glad  that  I  understood,  and 
willing  to  love  anything  that  was  a  girl  or 
that  was  young,  —  oh,  you  know,  mamacita, 
—  and  so  I  began  to  cry  a  little,  too ;  and 
the  first  thing  I  knew  I  kissed  her,  which 
was  most  informal,  if  not  positively  im- 
pertinent. But  she  seemed  to  like  it,  for 
she  kissed  me  back  again,  and  I  ran  and 
jumped  on  the  car,  and  here  I  am!  You 
will  have  to  eat  your  dinner  without  any 
flowers,  madam,  for  you  have  a  vulgarly 
strong,  healthy  daughter,  and  the  poor  lady 
in  black  has  n't." 

This  was  Polly's  first  impression  of  "  the 
lady  in  black,"  and  thus  began  an  acquaint- 
ance which  was  destined  before  many  months 
to  play  a  very  important  part  in  Polly's  for- 
tunes and  misfortunes. 

What  the  lady  in  black  thought  of  Polly, 
then  and  subsequently,  was  told  at  her  own 
fireside,  where  she  sat,  some  six  weeks  later, 
chatting  over  an  after-dinner  cup  of  coffee 
with  her  brother-in-law. 

"  Take    the   armchair,  John,"   said  Mrs. 


IHE   LADY  IN   BLACK 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.         131 

Bird ;  "  for  I  have  '  lots  to  tell  you,'  as  the 
young  folks  say.  I  was  in  the  Children's 
Hospital  about  five  o'clock  to-day.  I  have  n't 
been  there  for  three  months,  and  I  felt  guilty 
about  it.  The  matron  asked  me  to  go  up- 
stairs into  the  children's  sitting-room,  the 
one  Donald  and  I  fitted  up  in  memory  of 
Carol.  She  said  that  a  young  lady  was  tell- 
ing stories  to  the  children,  but  that  I  might 
go  right  up  and  walk  in.  I  opened  the  door 
softly,  though  I  don't  think  the  children 
would  have  noticed  if  I  had  fired  a  cannon 
in  their  midst,  and  stood  there,  spellbound 
by  the  loveliest,  most  touching  scene  I  ever 
witnessed.  The  room  has  an  open  fire,  and 
in  a  low  chair,  with  the  firelight  shining  on 
her  face,  sat  that  charming,  impulsive  girl 
who  gave  me  the  flowers  at  the  cemetery  — 
I  told  you  about  her.  She  was  telling  stories 
to  the  children.  There  were  fifteen  or  twenty 
of  them  in  the  room,  all  the  semi-invalids 
and  convalescents,  I  should  think,  and  they 
were  gathered  about  her  like  flies  round  a 
saucer  of  honey.  Every  child  that  could, 
was  doing  its  best  to  get  a  bit  of  her  dress  to 
touch,  or  a  finger  of  her  hand  to  hold,  or  an 
inch  of  her  chair  to  lean  upon.  They  were 
the  usual  pale,  weary-looking  children,  most 


132  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

of  them  with  splints  and  weights  and  crutches, 
and  through  the  folding-doors  that  opened 
into  the  next  room  I  could  see  three  more 
tiny  things  sitting  up  in  their  cots  and  drink- 
ing in  every  word  with  eagerness  and  trans- 
port. 

"  And  I  don't  wonder.  There  is  magic  in 
that  girl  for  sick  or  sorrowing  people.  I 
wish  you  could  have  seen  and  heard  her. 
Her  hair  is  full  of  warmth  and  color  ;  her 
lips  and  cheeks  are  pink  ;  her  eyes  are  bright 
with  health  and  mischief,  and  beaming  with 
love,  too ;  her  smile  is  like  sunshine,  and 
her  voice  as  glad  as  a  wild  bird's.  I  never 
saw  a  creature  so  alive  and  radiant,  and  I 
could  feel  that  the  weak  little  creatures 
drank  in  her  strength  and  vigor,  without 
depleting  her,  as  flowers  drink  in  the  sun- 
light. 

"As  she  stood  up  and  made  ready  to 
go,  she  caught  sight  of  me,  and  ejaculated, 
with  the  most  astonished  face,  '  Why,  it  is 
my  lady  in  black!  '  Then,  with  a  blush, 
she  added,  '  Excuse  me !  I  spoke  without 
thinking  —  I  always  do.  I  have  thought  of 
you  very  often  since  I  gave  you  the  flowers  ; 
and  as  I  did  n't  know  your  name,  I  have 
always  called  you  my  lady  in  black.' 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  133 

"  '  I  should  be  very  glad  to  be  your  "  lady  " 
in  any  color,'  I  answered,  'and  my  other 
name  is  Mrs.  Bird.'  Then  I  asked  her  if 
she  would  not  come  and  see  me.  She  said, 
'  Yes,  with  pleasure,'  and  told  me  also  that 
her  mother  was  ill,  and  that  she  left  her  as 
little  as  possible ;  whereupon  I  offered  to 
go  and  see  her  instead. 

"  Now,  here  endeth  the  first  lesson,  and 
here  beginneth  the  second,  namely,  my  new 
plan,  on  which  I  wish  to  ask  your  advice. 
You  know  that  all  the  money  Donald  and  I 
used  to  spend  on  Carol's  nurses,  physicians, 
and  what  not,  we  give  away  each  Christmas 
Day  in  memory  of  her.  It  may  be  that  we 
give  it  in  monthly  installments,  but  we  try  to 
plan  it  and  let  people  know  about  it  on  that 
day.  I  propose  to  create  a  new  prof ession  for 
talented  young  women  who  like  to  be  help- 
ful to  others  as  well  as  to  themselves.  I 
propose  to  offer  this  little  Miss  Oliver,  say 
twenty-five  dollars  a  month,  if  she  will  go 
regularly  to  the  Children's  Hospital  and  to 
the  various  orphan  asylums  just  before  sup- 
per and  just  before  bedtime,  and  sing  and 
tell  stories  to  the  children  for  an  hour.  I 
want  to  ask  her  to  give  two  hours  a  day  only, 
going  to  each  place  once  or  twice  a  week; 


134  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

but  of  course  she  will  need  a  good  deal  of  time 
for  preparation.  If  she  accepts,  I  will  see 
the  managers  of  the  various  institutions, 
offer  her  services,  and  arrange  for  the  hours. 
I  am  confident  that  they  will  receive  my 
protegee  with  delight,  and  I  am  sure  that  I 
shall  bring  the  good  old  art  of  story-telling 
into  fashion  again,  through  this  gifted  girl. 
Now,  John,  what  do  you  think?" 

"  I  heartily  approve,  as  usual.  It  is  a  nov- 
elty, but  I  cannot  see  why  it  's  not  perfectly 
expedient,  and  I  certainly  can  think  of  no 
other  way  in  which  a  monthly  expenditure 
of  twenty-five  dollars  will  carry  so  much  gen- 
uine delight  and  comfort  to  so  many  different 
children.  Carol  would  sing  for  joy  if  she 
could  know  of  your  plan." 

"Perhaps  she  does  know  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Bird  softly. 

And  so  it  was  settled. 

Polly's  joy  and  gratitude  at  Mrs.  Bird's 
proposal  baffles  the  powers  of  the  narrator. 
It  was  one  of  those  things  pleasant  to  be- 
hold, charming  to  imagine,  but  impossible  to 
describe.  After  Mrs.  Bird's  carriage  had 
been  whirled  away,  she  watched  at  the  win- 
dow for  Edgar,  and,  when  she  saw  him  near- 
ing  the  steps,  did  not  wait  for  him  to  unlock 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  135 

the  door,  but  opened  it  from  the  top  of  the 
stairs,  and  flew  down  them  to  the  landing  as 
lightly  as  a  feather. 

As  for  Edgar  himself,  he  was  coming  up 
with  unprecedented  speed,  and  they  nearly 
fell  into  each  other's  arms  as  they  both  ex- 
claimed, in  one  breath,  "  Hurrah ! "  and 
then,  in  another,  "Who  told  you?" 

"  How  did  you  know  it?"  asked  Edgar. 
"  Has  Tom  Mills  been  here  ?  " 

"  What  is  anybody  by  the  name  of  Mills 
to  me  in  my  present  state  of  mind !  "  ex- 
claimed Polly.  "  Have  you  some  good  news, 
too  ?     If  so,  speak  out  quickly." 

"  Good  news  ?  I  should  think  I  had ; 
what  else  were  you  hurrahing  about  ?  I  've 
won  the  scholarship,  and  I  have  a  chance  to 
earn  some  money !  Tom  Mills's  eyes  are  in 
bad  condition,  and  the  oculist  says  he  must 
wear  blue  goggles  and  not  look  at  a  book  for 
two  months.  His  father  wrote  to  me  to-day, 
and  he  asks  if  I  will  read  over  the  day's  les- 
sons with  Tom  every  afternoon  or  evening, 
so  that  he  can  keep  up  with  the  class ;  and 
says  that  if  I  will  do  him  this  great  service 
he  will  be  glad  to  pay  me  any  reasonable 
sum.  He  'ventured'  to  write  me  on  Pro- 
fessor Hope's  recommendation." 


136  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  Oil,  Edgar,  that  is  too,  too  good ! " 
cried  Polly,  jumping  up  and  down  in  de- 
light. "  Now  hear  my  news.  What  do  you 
suppose  has  happened  ?  " 

"  Turned-up  noses  have  come  into  style." 
"  Insulting !       That    is  n't    the    spirit    I 
showed  when  you  told  me  your  good  news." 
"  You  've  found  the  leak  in  the  gas  stove." 
"  On  the  contrary,  I  don't  care  if  all  the 
gas  in  our  establishment  leaks  from  now  to 
the  millennium.     Guess  again,  stupid  !  " 
"  Somebody  has  left  you  a  million." 
"  No,  no  ! "  (scornfully.)     "  Well,  I  can't 
wait  your  snail's  pace.     My  lady  in   black, 
Mrs.  Donald  Bird,  has  been  here   all  the 
afternoon,  and  she  offers  me  twenty-five  dol- 
lars a  month  to  give  up  the  Baer  cubs  and 
tell  stories  two  hours  a  day  in  the  orphan 
asylums  and  the  Children's  Hospital !     Just 
what  I   love  to  do !     Just  what   I    always 
longed  to  do !     Just  what  I  woidd  do  if  I 
were  a  billionaire  !     Is  n't  it  heavenly  ?  " 

"Well,  well!  We  are  in  luck,  Polly. 
Hurrah!  Fortune  smiles  at  last  on  the 
Noble-Oliver  household.  Let 's  have  a  jolli- 
fication !  Oh,  I  forgot.  Tom  Mills  wants 
to  come  to  dinner.  Will  you  mind?  " 
"Let  him  come,  goggles  and  all;  we  '11 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  137 

have  the  lame  and  the  halt,  as  well  as  the 
blind,  if  we  happen  to  see  any.  Mamma 
won't  care.  I  told  her  we  'd  have  a  feast 
to-night  that  should  vie  with  any  of  the  old 
Roman  banquets  !  Here  's  my  purse  ;  please 
go  down  on  Sutter  Street  - —  ride  both  ways 
—  and  buy  anything  extravagant  and  unsea- 
sonable you  can  find.  Get  forced  tomatoes  ; 
we  '11  have  '  chops  and  tomato  sauce '  a  la 
Mrs.  Bar  dell ;  order  fried  oysters  in  a 
browned  loaf  ;  get  a  quart  of  ice  cream,  the 
most  expensive  variety  they  have,  a  loaf  of 
the  richest  cake  in  the  bakery,  and  two  choc- 
olate eclairs  apiece.  Buy  hothouse  roses, 
or  orchids,  for  the  table,  and  give  five  cents 
to  that  dirty  little  boy  on  the  corner  there. 
In  short,  as  Frank  Stockton  says,  'Let  us 
so  live  while  we  are  up  that  we  shall  for- 
get we  have  ever  been  down ' !  "  and  Polly 
plunged  upstairs  to  make  a  toilet  worthy  of 
the  occasion. 

The  banquet  was  such  a  festive  occasion 
that  Yung  Lee's  Chinese  reserve  was  sorely 
tried,  and  he  giggled  more  than  once,  while 
waiting  on  the  table. 

Polly  had  donned  a  trailing  black  silk 
skirt  of  her  mother's,  with  a  white  chuddah 
shawl  for   a   court  train,  and  a  white  lace 


138  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

waist  to  top  it.  Her  hair  was  wound  into  a 
knot  on  the  crown  of  her  head  and  adorned 
with  three  long  black  ostrich  feathers,  which 
soared  to  a  great  height,  and  presented  a 
most  magnificent  and  queenly  appearance. 

Tom  Mills,  whose  father  was  four  times  a 
millionaire,  wondered  why  they  never  had 
such  gay  times  at  his  home,  and  tried  to 
fancy  his  sister  Blanche  sparkling  and  glow- 
ing and  beaming  over  the  prospect  of  earn- 
ing twenty-five  dollars  a  month. 

Then,  when  bedtime  came,  Polly  and  her 
mother  talked  it  all  over  in  the  dark. 

"  Oh,  mainacita,  I  am  so  happy  !  It 's  such 
a  lovely  beginning,  and  I  shall  be  so  glad, 
so  glad  to  do  it !  I  hope  Mrs.  Bird  did  n't 
invent  the  plan  for  my  good,  for  I  have  been 
frightfully  shabby  each  time  she  has  seen 
me,  but  she  says  she  thinks  of  nothing 
but  the  children.  Now  we  will  have  some 
pretty  things,  won't  we  ?  And  oh  !  do  you 
think,  not  just  now,  but  some  time  in  the 
distant  centuries,  I  can  have  a  string  of 
gold  beads  ?  " 

"I  do,  indeed,"  sighed  Mrs.  Oliver. 
"You  are  certainly  in  no  danger  of  being 
spoiled  by  luxury  in  your  youth,  my  poor 
little  Pollykins ;  but  you  will  get  all  these 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  139 

things  some  time,  I  feel  sure,  if  they  are 
good  for  you,  and  if  they  belong  to  you. 
You  remember  the  lines  I  read  the  other 
day:  — 

'  Hast  not  thy  share  ?     On  winged  feet, 
Lo  !  it  rushes  thee  to  meet  ; 
And  all  that  Nature  made  thy  own, 
Floating-  in  air  or  pent  in  stone, 
Will  rive  the  hills  and  swim  the  sea 
And,  like  thy  shadow,  follow  thee.'  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Polly  contentedly ;  "  I  am 
satisfied.  My  share  of  the  world's  work  is 
rushing  to  meet  me.  To-night  I  could  just 
say  with  Sarah  Jewett's  Country  Doctor, 
'  My  God,  I  thank  thee  for  my  future.'  " 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   GREAT   SILENCE. 

The  months  of  April  and  May  were  happy 
ones.  The  weather  was  perfect,  as  only 
California  weather  understands  the  art  of 
being ;  the  hills  were  at  their  greenest ;  the 
wind  almost  forgot  to  blow ;  the  fields  blazed 
in  wild-flowers ;  day  after  day  rose  in  cloud- 
less splendor,  and  day  after  day  the  Golden 
Gate  shone  like  a  sapphire  in  the  sun. 

Polly  was  inwardly  nervous.  She  had  the 
"  awe  of  prosperity  "  in  her  heart,  and  every- 
thing seemed  too  bright  to  last. 

Both  she  and  Edgar  were  very  busy.  But 
work  that  one  loves  is  no  hardship,  espe- 
cially when  one  is  strong  and  young  and 
hopeful,  and  when  one  has  great  matters  at 
stake,  such  as  the  health  and  wealth  of  an 
invalid  mother,  or  the  paying  off  of  disa- 
greeable debts. 

Even  the  limp  Mrs.  Chadwick  shared  in 
the  general  joy ;  for  Mr.  Greenwood  was  so 
utterly  discouraged  with  her  mismanagement 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  141 

of  the  house,  so  determined  not  to  fly  to  ills 
he  knew  not  of,  and  so  anxious  to  bring 
order  out  of  chaos,  that  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment  one  day  he  married  her.  On  the 
next  day  he  discharged  the  cook,  hired  a 
better  one  the  third,  dunned  the  delinquent 
boarder  the  fourth,  and  collected  from  him 
on  the  fifth ;  so  the  May  check  (signed 
Clementine  Chadwick  Greenwood)  was  made 
out  for  eighty-five  dollars. 

But  in  the  midst  of  it  all,  when  everything 
in  the  outside  world  danced  with  life  and 
vigor,  and  the  little  house  could  hardly  hold 
its  sweet  content,  —  without  a  glimmer  of 
warning,  without  a  moment's  fear  or  dread, 
without  the  precious  agony  of  parting,  Mrs. 
Oliver  slipped  softly,  gently,  safely,  into  the 
Great  Silence. 

Mercifully  it  was  Edgar,  not  Polly,  who 
found  her  in  her  accustomed  place  on  the 
cushions,  lying  with  closed  eyelids  and  smil- 
ing lips. 

It  was  half  past  five.  .  .  .  Polly  must  have 
gone  out  at  four,  as  usual,  and  would  be  back 
in  half  an  hour.  .  .  .  Yung  Lee  was  hum- 
ming softly  in  the  little  kitchen.  ...  In 
five  minutes  Edgar  Noble  had  suffered,  lived, 
and  grown  ten  years.     He  was  a  man.  .  .  . 


142  POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

And  then  came  Polly,  —  and  Mrs.  Bird  with 
her,  thank  Heaven !  —  Polly  breathless  and 
glowing,  looking  up  at  the  bay  window  for 
her  mother's  smile  of  welcome. 

In  a  few  seconds  the  terrible  news  was 
broken,  and  Polly,  overpowered  with  its 
awful  suddenness,  dropped  before  it  as 
under  a  physical  blow. 

It  was  better  so.  Mrs.  Bird  carried  her 
home  for  the  night,  as  she  thought,  but  a 
merciful  blur  stole  over  the  child's  tired  brain, 
and  she  lay  for  many  weeks  in  a  weary  ill- 
ness of  delirium  and  stupor  and  fever. 

Meanwhile,  Edgar  acted  as  brother,  son, 
and  man  of  the  house.  He  it  was  who  man- 
aged everything,  from  the  first  sorrowful  days 
up  to  the  closing  of  the  tiny  upper  flat  where 
so  much  had  happened  :  not  great  things  of 
vast  outward  importance,  but  small  ones,  — 
little  miseries  and  mortifications  and  strug- 
gles and  self-denials  and  victories,  that  made 
the  past  half  year  a  milestone  in  his  life. 

A  week  finished  it  all !  It  takes  a  very 
short  time,  he  thought,  to  scatter  to  the  winds 
of  heaven  all  the  gracious  elements  that 
make  a  home.  Only  a  week;  and  in  the 
first  days  of  June,  Edgar  went  back  to  Santa 
Barbara  for  the  summer    holidays    without 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  143 

even  a  sight  of  his  brave,  helpful  girl- 
comrade. 

He  went  back  to  his  brother's  congratu- 
lations, his  sister's  kisses,  his  mother's  happy- 
tears,  and  his  father's  hearty  hand-clasp,  full 
of  renewed  pride  and  belief  in  his  eldest  son. 
But  there  was  a  shadow  on  the  lad's  high 
spirits  as  he  thought  of  gay,  courageous, 
daring  Polly,  stripped  in  a  moment  of  all 
that  made  life  dear. 

"  I  wish  we  could  do  something  for  her, 
poor  little  soul,"  he  said  to  his  mother  in  one 
of  their  long  talks  in  the  orange-tree  sitting- 
room.  "  Tongue  cannot  tell  what  Mrs.  Oli- 
ver has  been  to  me,  and  I  'm  not  a  bit  ashamed 
to  own  up  to  Polly's  influence,  even  if  she  is 
a  girl  and  two  or  three  years  younger  than 
I  am.  Hang  it !  I  'd  like  to  see  the  fellow 
that  coidd  live  under  the  same  roof  as  those 
two  women,  and  not  do  the  best  that  was  in 
him  I  Has  n't  Polly  some  relatives  in  the 
East?" 

"  No  near  ones,  and  none  that  she  has  ever 
seen.  Still,  she  is  not  absolutely  alone,  as 
many  girls  would  be  under  like  circumstances. 
We  would  be  only  too  glad  to  have  her  here  ; 
the  Howards  have  telegraphed  asking  her  to 
spend  the  winter  with  them  in  Cambridge ; 


144         POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

I  am  confident  Dr.  Winship  will  do  the  same 
when  the  news  of  Mrs.  Oliver's  death  reaches 
Europe ;  and  Mrs.  Bird  seems  to  have  con- 
stituted herself  a  sort  of  Fairy  Godmother  in 
chief.  You  see  everybody  loves  Polly ;  and 
she  will  probably  have  no  less  than  four  homes 
open  to  her.  The  fact  is,  if  you  should  put 
Polly  on  a  desert  island,  the  bees  and  the 
butterflies  and  the  birds  would  gather  about 
her  ;  she  draws  everything  and  everybody  to 
her  magically.  Then,  too,  she  is  not  penniless. 
Bents  are  low,  and  she  cannot  ho]3e  to  get 
quite  as  much  for  the  house  as  before,  but 
even  counting  repairs,  taxes,  and  furnishings, 
we  think  she  is  reasonably  certain  of  fifty 
dollars  a  month." 

"  She  will  never  be  idle,  unless  this  sor- 
row makes  a  great  change  in  her.  Polly 
seems  to  have  been  created  to  '  become '  by 
'  doing.' " 

"  Yet  she  does  not  in  the  least  relish  work, 
Edgar.  I  never  knew  a  girl  with  a  greater 
appetite  for  luxury.  One  cannot  always  see 
the  deepest  reasons  in  God's  providence  as 
applied  to  one's  own  life  and  character  ;  but 
it  is  often  easy  to  understand  them  as  one 
looks  at  other  people  and  notes  their  growth 
and  development.     For  instance,  Polly's  in- 


POLLY  OLIVERS  PROBLEM.  145 

tense  love  for  her  invalid  mother  has  kept 
her  from  being  selfish.  The  straitened  cir- 
cumstances in  which  she  has  been  compelled 
to  live  have  prevented  her  from  yielding  to 
self-indulgence  or  frivolity.  Even  her  hun- 
ger for  the  beautiful  has  been  a  discipline ; 
for  since  beautiful  things  were  never  given 
to  her  ready-made,  she  has  been  forced  to 
create  them.  Her  lot  in  life,  which  she  has 
always  lamented,  has  given  her  a  self-control, 
a  courage,  a  power,  which  she  never  would 
have  had  in  the  world  had  she  grown  up  in 
luxury.  She  is  too  young  to  see  it,  but  it  is 
very  clear  to  me  that  Polly  Oliver  is  a  glori- 
ous product  of  circumstances." 

"  But,"  objected  Edgar,  "  that  is  not  fair. 
You  are  giving  all  the  credit  to  circum- 
stances, and  none  to  Polly's  own  nature." 

"  Not  at  all.  If  there  had  not  been  the 
native  force  to  develop,  experience  would 
have  had  nothing  to  work  upon.  As  it  is,  ■ 
her  lovely  childish  possibilities  have  become 
probabilities,  and  I  look  to  see  the  girlish 
probabilities  blossom  into  womanly  certain- 
ties." 

Meanwhile  Polly,  it  must  be  confessed,  was 
not  at  the  present  time  quite  justifying  the 
good  opinion  of  her  friends. 


146         POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

She  had  few  of  the  passive  virtues.  She 
could  bear  sharp  stabs  of  misfortune,  which 
fired  her  energ}^  and  pride,  but  she  resented 
pin  pricks.  She  could  carry  heavy,  splendid 
burdens  cheerfully,  but  she  fretted  under 
humble  cares.  She  could  serve  by  daring, 
but  not  by  waiting.  She  would  have  gone 
to  the  stake  or  the  scaffold,  I  think,  with 
tolerable  grace ;  but  she  would  probably 
have  recanted  any  article  of  faith  if  she  had 
been  confronted  with  life-imprisonment. 

Trouble  that  she  took  upon  herself  for  the 
sake  of  others,  and  out  of  love,  she  accepted 
sweetly.  Sorrows  that  she  did  not  choose, 
which  were  laid  upon  her  without  her  con- 
sent, and  which  were  "  just  the  ones  she  did 
not  want,  and  did  not  need,  and  would  not 
have,  and  could  not  bear,"  —  these  sorrows 
found  her  unwilling,  bitter,  and  impatient. 

Yet  if  life  is  a  school  and  we  all  have  les- 
sons to  learn  in  it,  the  Great  Teacher  will 
be  unlikely  to  set  us  tasks  which  we  have 
already  finished.  Some  review  there  must 
be,  for  certain  things  are  specially  hard  to 
keep  in  mind,  and  have  to  be  gone  over  and 
over,  lest  they  fade  into  forgetfulness.  But 
there  must  be  continued  j^rogress  in  a  life 
school.     There  is  no  parrot  repetition,  sing- 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  147 

song,  meaningless,  of  words  that  have  ceased 
to  be  vital.  New  lessons  are  to  be  learned 
as  fast  as  the  old  ones  are  understood.  Of 
what  use  to  set  Polly  tasks  to  develop  her 
bravery,  when  she  was  already  brave  ? 

Courage  was  one  of  the  little  jewels  set 
in  her  fairy  crown  when  she  was  born,  but 
there  was  a  round,  empty  space  beside  it, 
where  Patience  should  have  been.  Further 
along  was  Daring,  making  a  brilliant  show, 
but  again  there  was  a  tiny  vacancy  waiting 
for  Prudence. 

The  crown  made  a  fine  appearance,  on  the 
whole,  because  the  large  jewels  were  mostly 
in  place,  and  the  light  of  these  blinded  you 
to  the  lack  of  the  others;  but  to  the  eye  of 
the  keen  observer  there  was  a  want  of  sym- 
metry and  completeness. 

Polly  knew  the  unfinished  state  of  her 
fairy  crown  as  well  as  anybody  else.  She 
could  not  plead  ignorance  as  an  excuse  ;  but 
though  she  would  have  gone  on  polishing 
the  great  gems  with  a  fiery  zeal,  she  added 
the  little  jewels  very  slowly,  and  that  only 
on  compulsion. 

There  had  been  seven  or  eight  weeks  of 
partial  unconsciousness,  when  the  sorrow  and 
the  loneliness  of  life  stole  into  her  waking 


148  FOLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

dreams  only  vaguely  and  at  intervals  ;  when 
she  was  unhappy,  and  could  not  remember 
why ;  and  slept,  to  wake  and  wonder  and 
sleep  again. 

Then  there  were  days  and  weeks  when  the 
labor  of  living  was  all  that  the  jaded  body 
could  accomplish ;  when  memory  was  weak  ; 
when  life  began  at  the  pillow,  and  ended  at 
the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  the  universe  was 
bounded  by  the  chamber  windows. 

But  when  her  strength  came  back,  and 
she  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  clothed 
and  in  her  right  mind,  well  enough  to  re- 
member, —  oh !  then  indeed  the  deep  wa- 
ters of  bitterness  rolled  over  poor  Polly's 
head  and  into  her  heart,  and  she  sank  be- 
neath them  without  a  wish  or  a  struggle  to 
rise. 

"If  it  had  been  anything  else!"  she 
sobbed.  "  Why  did  God  take  away  my 
most  precious,  my  only  one  to  live  for,  when 
I  was  trying  to  take  care  of  her,  trying  to  be 
good,  trying  to  give  back  the  strength  that 
had  been  poured  out  on  me, — miserable, 
worthless  me  !  Surely,  if  a  girl  was  willing 
to  do  without  a  father  and  sisters  and  bro- 
thers, without  good  times  and  riches,  willing 
to  work  like  a  galley  slave,  willing  to '  scrimp ' 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  149 

and  plan  and  save  for  ever  and  ever ;  surely 
'  they  '  might  be  willing  that  she  should  keep 
her  mother  !  " 

.  Poor  Polly !  Providence  at  this  time 
seemed  nothing  more  than  a  collection  of 
demons  which  she  classified  under  the  word 
"  they,"  and  which  she  felt  certain  were 
scourging  her  pitilessly  and  needlessly.  She 
could  not  see  any  reason  or  justification  in 
" their"  cruelties,  —  for  that  was  the  only 
term  she  could  apply  to  her  afflictions. 

Mrs.  Bird  had  known  sorrow,  and  she  did 
her  best  to  minister  to  the  troubled  and 
wrong  little  heart ;  but  it  was  so  torn  that  it 
could  be  healed  only  by  the  soft  balm  of 
Time. 

Perhaps,  a  long  while  after  such  a  grief, 
—  it  is  always  "  perhaps  "  in  a  great  crisis, 
though  the  certainty  is  ours  if  we  will  but 
grasp  it,  —  perhaps  the  hidden  meaning  of 
the  sorrow  steals  gently  into  our  softened 
hearts.  We  see,  as  in  a  vision,  a  new  light 
by  which  to  work  ;  we  rise,  cast  off  the  out- 
grown shell,  and  build  us  a  more  stately 
mansion,  in  which  to  dwell  till  God  makes 
that  home  also  too  small  to  hold  the  ever- 
growing soul ! 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

A  GARDEN   FLOWER,   OR  A  BANIAN-TREE. 

In  August  Mr.  John  Bird  took  Polly  to 
the  Nobles'  ranch  in  Santa  Barbara,  in  the 
hope  that  the  old  scenes  and  old  friends 
might  soothe  her,  and  give  her  strength  to 
take  up  the  burden  of  life  with  something  of 
her  former  sunshiny  spirit. 

Edgar  was  a  junior  now,  back  at  his  work, 
sunburned  and  strong  from  his  summer's 
outing.  He  had  seen  Polly  twice  after  his 
return  to  San  Francisco ;  but  the  first  meet- 
ing was  an  utter  failure,  and  the  second 
nearly  as  trying.  Neither  of  them  could 
speak  of  the  subject  that  absorbed  their 
thoughts,  nor  had  either  courage  enough  to 
begin  other  topics  of  conversation.  The 
mere  sight  of  Edgar  was  painful  to  the  girl 
now,  it  brought  to  mind  so  much  that  was 
dear,  so  much  that  was  past  and  gone. 

In  the  serenity  of  the  ranch-life,  the  long 
drives  with  Margery  and  Philip,  the  quiet 
chats  with  Mrs.  Noble,  Polly  gained  some- 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  151 

what  in  strength;  but  the  old  "spring," 
vitality,  and  enthusiasm  had  vanished  for  the 
time,  and  the  little  circle  of  friends  marveled 
at  this  Polly  without  her  nonsense,  her  ready 
smiles,  her  dancing  dimples,  her  extrava- 
gances of  speech. 

Once  a  week,  at  least,  Dr.  George  would 
steal  an  hour  or  two,  and  saddle  his  horse 
to  take  Polly  for  a  gallop  over  the  hills, 
through  the  canons,  or  on  the  beach. 

His  half-grave,  half-cheery  talks  on  these 
rides  did  her  much  good.  He  sympathized 
and  understood  and  helped,  even  when  he 
chided,  and  Polly  sometimes  forgot  her  own 
troubles  in  wondering  whether  Dr.  George 
had  not  suffered  and  overcome  a  good  many 
of  his  own. 

"  You  make  one  great  error,  my  child,"  he 
once  said,  in  response  to  one  of  Polly's  out- 
bursts of  grief ;  "  and  it  is  an  error  young 
people  very  naturally  fall  into.  You  think 
that  no  one  was  ever  chastened  as  you 
are.  You  say,  with  Jeremiah,  '  No  prophet 
is  afflicted  like  unto  this  prophet !  '  Now 
you  are  simply  bearing  your  own  share  of 
the  world's  trouble.  How  can  you  hope  to 
escape  the  universal  lot  ?  There  are  dozens 
of  people  within  sight  of  this  height  of  land 


152  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

who  have  borne  as  much,  and  must  bear  as 
much  again.  I  know  this  must  seem  a  hard 
philosophy,  and  I  should  not  preach  it  to  any 
but  a  stout  little  spirit  like  yours,  my  Polly. 
These  things  come  to  all  of  us ;  they  are 
stern  facts ;  they  are  here,  and  they  must 
be  borne  ;  but  it  makes  all  the  difference  in 
the  world  how  we  bear  them.  We  can 
clench  our  fists,  close  our  lips  tightly,  and 
say,  '  Since  I  must,  I  can  ; '  or  we  can  look 
up  and  say  cheerfully,  '  I  will ! '  The  first 
method  is  philosophical  and  strong  enough, 
but  there  is  no  sweetness  in  it.  If  you  have 
this  burden  to  carry,  make  it  as  light,  not  as 
heavy,  as  you  can  ;  if  you  have  this  grief  to 
endure,  you  want  at  least  to  come  out  of  it 
sweeter  and  stronger  than  ever  before.  It 
seems  a  pity  to  let  it  go  for  nothing.  In 
the  largest  sense  of  the  word,  you  can  live 
for  your  mother  now  as  truly  as  you  did  in 
the  old  times  ;  you  know  very  well  how  she 
would  have  had  you  live." 

Polly  felt  a  sense  of  shame  steal  over  her 
as  she  looked  at  Dr.  George's  sweet,  strong 
smile  and  resolute  mouth,  and  she  said,  with 
the  hint  of  a  new  note  in  her  voice  :  — 

"  I  see,  and  I  will  try  ;  but  how  does  one 
ever  learn  to  live  without  loving,  —  I  mean 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  153 

the  kind  of  loving  I  had  in  my  life  ?  I  know 
I  can  live  for  my  mother  in  the  largest  sense 
of  the  word,  bnt  to  me  all  the  comfort  and 
sweetness  seems  to  tuck  itself  under  the  word 
in  its  '  little  '  sense.  I  shall  have  to  go  on 
developing  and  developing  until  I  am  almost 
developed  to  death,  and  go  on  growing  and 
growing  in  grace  until  I  am  ready  to  be 
caught  up  in  a  chariot  of  fire,  before  I 
can  love  my  mother  4  in  the  largest  sense  of 
the  word.'  I  want  to  cuddle  my  head  on 
her  shoulder,  that 's  what  I  want.  Oh,  Dr. 
George,  how  does  one  contrive  to  be  good 
when  one  is  not  happy?  How  can  one 
walk  in  the  right  path  when  there  does  n't 
seem  to  be  any  brightness  to  go  by  ?  " 

"  My  dear  little  girl,"  and  Dr.  George 
looked  soberly  out  on  the  ocean,  dull  and 
lifeless  under  the  gray  October  sky,  "  when 
the  sun  of  one's  happiness  is  set,  one  lights 
a  candle  called  '  Patience,'  and  guides  one's 
footsteps  by  that !  " 

"  If  only  I  were  not  a  rich  heiress,"  said 
Polly  next  morning,  "  I  dare  say  I  should 
be  better  off ;  for  then  I  simply  could  n't 
have  gone  to  bed  for  two  or  three  months, 
and  idled  about  like  this  for  another.     But 


154  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

there  seems  to  be  no  end  to  my  money. 
Edgar  paid  all  the  bills  in  San  Francisco, 
and  saved  twenty  out  of  our  precious  three 
hundred  and  twelve  dollars.  Then  Mrs. 
Greenwood's  rent-money  has  been  accumu- 
lating four  months,  while  I  have  been  vis- 
iting you  and  Mrs.  Bird;  and  the  Green- 
woods are  willing  to  pay  sixty  dollars  a 
month  for  the  house  still,  even  though  times 
are  didl ;  so  I  am  hopelessly  wealthy,  — 
but  on  the  whole  I  am  very  glad.  The  old 
desire  to  do  something,  and  be  something, 
seems  to  have  faded  out  of  my  life  with  all 
the  other  beautiful  things.  I  think  I  shall 
go  to  a  girls'  college  and  study,  or  find  some 
other  way  of  getting  through  the  hateful, 
endless  years  that  stretch  out  ahead  !  Why, 
I  am  only  a  little  past  seventeen,  and  I  may 
live  to  be  ninety !  I  do  not  see  how  I  can 
ever  stand  this  sort  of  thing  for  seventy- 
three  years !  " 

Mrs.  Noble  smiled  in  spite  of  herself. 
"  Just  apply  yourself  to  getting  through  this 
year,  Polly  dear,  and  let  the  other  seventy- 
two  take  care  of  themselves.  They  will 
bring  their  own  cares  and  joys  and  responsi- 
bilities and  problems,  little  as  you  realize  it 
now.     This  year,  grievous  as  it  seems,  will 


£^^ 


SHE  OPENED  THE  BOOK  AND  READ  " 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  155 

fade  by  and  by,  until  you  can  look  back  at 
it  with  resignation  and  without  tears." 

"  I  don't  want  it  to  fade !  "  cried  Polly 
passionately.  "  I  never  want  to  look  back 
at  it  without  tears  !  I  want  to  be  faithful 
always ;  I  want  never  to  forget,  and  never 
to  feel  less  sorrow  than  I  do  this  minute  !  " 

"  Take  that  blue-covered  Emerson  on  the 
table,  Polly  ;  open  it  at  the  essay  on  '  Com- 
pensation,' and  read  the  page  marked  with 
the  orange  leaf." 

The  tears  were  streaming  down  Polly's 
cheeks,  but  she  opened  the  book,  and  read 
with  a  faltering  voice  :  — 

"  We  cannot  part  with  our  f — f r —  friends.  We  can- 
not let  our  angels  go.  [Sob.]  We  do  not  see  that  they 
only  go  out  that  archangels  may  come  in.  .  .  .  We  do 
not  believe  there  is  any  force  in  to-day  to  rival  or  re-cre- 
ate that  beautiful  yesterday.  [Sob.]  We  linger  in  the 
ruins  of  the  old  tent  where  once  we  had  shelter.  .  .  . 
We  cannot  again  find  aught  so  dear,  so  sweet,  so  grace- 
ful. [Sob.]  But  we  sit  and  weep  in  vain.  We  cannot 
stay  amid  the  ruins.  The  voice  of  the  Almighty  saith, 
'  Up  and  onward  for  evermore  !  '  .  .  .  The  sure  years 
reveal  the  deep  remedial  force  that  underlies  all  sorrow. 
.  .  .  The  man  or  woman  who  would  have  remained  a 
sunny  garden  flower,  with  no  room  for  its  roots  and  too 
much  sunshine  for  its  head,  by  the  falling  of  the  walls 
and  the  neglect  of  the  gardener  is  made  the  banian  of 
the  forest,  yielding  shade  and  fruit  to  wide  neighbor- 
hoods of  men." 


156  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

«  Do  you  see,  Polly  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  see;  but  oh,  I  was  so  happy 
being  a  garden  flower  with  the  sunshine  on 
my  head,  and  I  can't  seem  to  care  the  least 
little  bit  for  being  a  banian-tree !  " 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Noble,  smiling  through 
her  own  tears,  "  I  fear  that  God  will  never  in- 
sist on  your  '  yielding  shade  and  fruit  to  wide 
neighborhoods  of  men '  unless  you  desire  it. 
Not  all  sunny  garden  flowers  become  banian- 
trees  by  the  falling  of  the  walls.  Some  of 
them  are  crushed  beneath  the  ruins,  and 
never  send  any  more  color  or  fragrance  into 
the  world." 

"  The  garden  flower  had  happiness  before 
the  walls  fell,"  said  Polly.  "  It  is  happiness 
I  want." 

"  The  banian-tree  had  blessedness  after  the 
walls  fell,  and  it  is  blessedness  I  want :  but 
then,  I  am  forty-seven,  and  you  are  seven- 
teen ! "  sighed  Mrs.  Noble,  as  they  walked 
through  the  orange  orchard  to  the  house. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

EDGAR   DISCOURSES    OF    SCARLET    RUNNERS. 

One  day,  in  the  middle  of  October,  the 
mail  brought  Polly  two  letters :  the  first 
from  Edgar,  who  often  dashed  off  cheery 
scrawls  in  the  hope  of  getting  cheery  replies, 
which  never  came ;  and  the  second  from 
Mrs.  Bird,  who  had  a  plan  to  propose. 

Edgar  wrote :  — 

..."  I  have  a  new  boarding-place  in  San 
Francisco,  a  stone's  throw  from  Mrs.  Bird's, 
whose  mansion  I  can  look  down  upon  from 
a  lofty  height  reached  by  a  flight  of  fifty 
wooden  steps,  —  good  training  in  athletics ! 
Mrs.  Morton  is  a  kind  landlady  and  the 
house  is  a  home,  in  a  certain  way,  — 

But  oh,  the  difference  to  me 
'Twixt  tweedledum  and  tweedledee ! 

"  There  is  a  Morton  girl,  too  ;  but  she 
neither  plays  nor  sings  nor  jokes,  nor  even 
looks,  —  in  fine,  she  is  not  Polly  !  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion,  now,  that  girls  in  a 
house  are  almost  always  nuisances,  —  I  mean, 


158  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

of  course,  when  they  are  not  Pollies.  Oh, 
why  are  you  so  young,  and  so  loaded  with  this 
world's  goods,  that  you  will  never  need  me  for 
a  boarder  again  ?  Mrs.  Bird  is  hoping  to  see 
you  soon,  and  I  chose  my  humble  lodging 
on  this  hill-top  because,  from  my  attic's 
lonely  height,  I  can  watch  you  going  in  and 
out  of  your  '  marble  halls ; '  and  you  will  al- 
most pass  my  door  as  you  take  the  car.  In 
view  of  this  pleasing  prospect  (now,  alas  ! 
somewhat  distant),  I  send  you  a  scrap  of 
newspaper  verse  which  prophesies  my  senti- 
ments. It  is  signed  '  M.  E.  W.,'  and  Tom 
Mills  says  whoever  wrote  it  knows  you. 

WHEN  POLLY  GOES  BY. 

'T  is  but  poorly  I  'm  lodged  in  a  little  side-street, 
Which  is  seldom  disturbed  by  the  hurry  of  feet, 
For  the  flood-tide  of  life  long-  ago  ebbed  away 
From  its  homely  old  houses,  rain-beaten  and  gray  ; 
And  I  sit  with  my  pipe  in  the  window,  and  sigh 
At  the  buffets  of  fortune  —  till  Polly  goes  by. 

There  's  a  flaunting  of  ribbons,  a  flurry  of  lace, 
And  a  rose  in  the  bonnet  above  a  bright  face, 
A  glance  from  two  eyes  so  deliciously  blue 
The  midsummer  seas  scarcely  rival  their  hue ; 
And  once  in  a  while,  if  the  wind  's  blowing  high, 
The  sound  of  soft  laughter  as  Polly  goes  by. 

Then  up  jumps  my  heart  and  begins  to  beat  fast. 
"  She  's  coming  !  "   it  whispers.      "  She  'a  here  !     Sha 
has  passed!  " 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  159 

While  I  throw  up  the  sash  and  lean  breathlessly  down 
To  catch  the  last  glimpse  of  her  vanishing  gown, 
Excited,  delighted,  yet  wondering  why 
My  senses  desert  me  if  Polly  goes  by. 

Ah  !  she  must  be  a  witch,  and  the  magical  spell 
She  has  woven  about  me  has  done  its  work  well, 
For  the  morning  grows  brighter,  and  gayer  the  air 
That  my  landlady  sings  as  she  sweeps  down  the  stair ; 
And  my  poor  lonely  garret,  up  close  to  the  sky, 
Seems  something  like  heaven  when  Polly  goes  by. 

"P.  S.  Tony  has  returned  to  the  uni- 
versity. He  asked  after  the  health  of  the 
'  sunset-haired  goddess  '  yesterday.  You  'd 
better  hurry  back  and  take  care  of  me ! 
No,  joking  aside,  don't  worry  about  me,  lit- 
tle missionary  ;  I  've  outgrown  Tony,  and  I 
hope  I  don't  need  to  be  reformed  oftener 
than  once  a  year. 

44  Yours  ever,  Edgar. 

"  P.  S.  No.  II.  I  saw  you  twice  after  — 
you  know  —  and  I  was  dumb  on  both  occa- 
sions. Of  all  people  in  the  world  I  ought  to 
have  been  able  to  say  something  helpful  to 
you  in  your  trouble,  I,  who  lived  with  you 
and  your  dear  mother  through  all  those  happy 
months  before  she  left  us.  It  will  be  just 
the  same  when  I  see  you  again  :  I  shall  never 
be  able  to  speak,  partly,  I  suppose,  because  I 
am  a  man,  or  on  the  road  to  becoming  one. 


160  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

I  know  this  is  making  you  cry  ;  I  can  see  the 
tears  in  your  eyes  across  all  the  distance  ; 
but  it  is  better  even  that  you  should  cry 
than  that  you  should  think  me  cold  or  un- 
mindful of  your  sorrow.  Do  you  know  one 
of  the  sacred  memories  of  my  life  ?  It  is 
that,  on  that  blessed  night  when  your  mother 
asked  me  to  come  and  live  under  her  roof, 
she  said  she  should  be  glad  to  feel  that  in 
any  sudden  emergency  you  and  she  would 
have  a  near  friend  to  lean  upon.  There  was 
a  '  royal  accolade,'  if  you  like !  I  felt  in  an 
instant  as  if  she  had  bestowed  the  order  of 
knighthood  upon  me,  and  as  if  I  must  live 
more  worthily  in  order  to  deserve  her  trust. 
How  true  it  is,  Polly,  that  those  who  believe 
in  us  educate  us ! 

"  Do  you  remember  (don't  cry,  dear !)  that 
night  by  the  fireside,  —  the  night  when  we 
brought  her  out  of  her  bedroom  after  three 
days  of  illness,  —  when  we  sat  on  either  side 
of  her,  each  holding  a  hand  while  she  told 
us  the  pretty  romance  of  her  meeting  and 
loving  your  father  ?  I  slipped  the  loose  wed- 
ding ring  up  and  down  her  finger,  and  stole 
a  look  at  her  now  and  then.  She  was  like  a 
girl  when  she  told  that  story,  and  I  could 
not  help  thinking  it  was  worth  while  to  be 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  161 

a  tender,  honorable,  faithful  man,  to  bring 
that  look  into  a  woman's  face  after  eighteen 
years.  Well,  I  adored  her,  that  is  all  I  can 
say ;  and  I  can't  say  even  that,  I  have  to 
write  it.  Don't  rob  me,  Polly,  of  the  right 
she  gave  me,  that  of  being  a  '  near  friend 
to  lean  upon.'  I  am  only  afraid,  because 
you,  more  than  any  one  else,  know  certain 
weaknesses  and  follies  of  mine,  and,  indeed, 
pulled  me  out  of  the  pit  and  held  me  up  till 
I  got  a  new  footing.  I  am  afraid  you  will 
never  have  the  same  respect  for  me,  nor  be- 
lieve that  a  fellow  so  weak  as  I  was  could  be 
strong  enough  to  lean  upon.  Try  me  once, 
Polly,  just  to  humor  me,  won't  you?  Give 
me  something  to  do,  —  something  hard! 
Lean  just  a  little,  Polly,  and  see  how  stiff 
I  '11  be,  —  no,  bother  it,  I  won't  be  stiff, 
I  '11  be  firm !  To  tell  the  truth,  I  can  never 
imagine  you  as  '  leaning  ; '  though  they  say 
you  are  pale  and  sad,  and  out  of  sorts  with 
life.  You  remind  me  of  one  of  the  gay  scar- 
let runners  that  climb  up  the  slender  poles 
in  the  garden  below  my  window.  The  pole 
holds  up  the  vine  at  first,  of  course,  but  the 
vine  keeps  the  pole  straight ;  not  in  any 
ugly  and  commonplace  fashion,  but  by  wind- 
ing round  and  round  about  it,  and  hanging 


162  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

its  blossoms  in  and  out  and  here  and  there, 
till  the  poor,  serviceable  pole  is  forgotten  in 
the  beauty  that  makes  use  of  it. 

"  Good-by,  little  scarlet  runner !  You  will 
bloom  again  some  day,  when  the  storm  that 
has  beaten  you  down  has  passed  over  and  the 
sky  is  clear  and  the  sun  warm.  Don't  laugh 
at  me,  Polly ! 
"  Always  yours,  whether  you  laugh  or  not, 

"  Edgar. 

"  P.  S.  No.  III.  I  should  n't  dare  add 
this  third  postscript  if  you  were  near  enough 
to  slay  me  with  the  lightning  of  your  eye,  but 
I  simply  wish  to  mention  that  a  wise  gar- 
dener chooses  young,  strong  timber  for  poles, 
—  saplings,  in  fact !  Mr.  John  Bird  is  too 
old  for  this  purpose.  Well  seasoned  he  is,  of 
course,  and  suitable  as  a  prop  for  a  century- 
plant,  but  not  for  a  scarlet  runner !  I  like 
him,  you  know,  but  I  'm  sure  he  'd  crack  if 
you  leaned  on  him;  in  point  of  fact,  he  's  a 
little  cracked  now !  E.  N.  " 

The  ghost  of  a  smile  shone  on  Polly's  April 
face  as  she  folded  Edgar's  letter  and  laid  it 
in  its  envelope  ;  first  came  a  smile,  then  a 
tear,  then  a  dimple,  then  a  sob,  then  a  wave 
of  bright  color. 

"Edgar    is    growing    up    so    fast,"  she 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  163 

thought,  "  I  shall  soon  be  afraid  to  scold  him 
or  advise  him,  and 

'  What  will  poor  Robin  do  then,  poor  thing  ?  J 

Upon  my  word,  if  I  caught  him  misbehaving 
nowadays,  I  believe  I  should  hesitate  to  re- 
monstrate with  him.  He  will  soon  be  capa- 
ble of  remonstrating  with  me,  at  this  rate. 
He  is  a  goose,  —  oh,  there  's  no  shadow  of 
doubt  as  to  that,  but  he  's  an  awfully  nice 
goose." 

Mrs.  Bird's  letter  ran  thus  :  — 
"  My  dearest  Polltkins  :  —  We  have 
lived  without  you  just  about  as  long  as  we 
can  endure  it.  The  boys  have  returned  to 
school  and  college.  Mr.  Bird  contemplates 
one  more  trip  to  Honolulu,  and  brother  John 
and  I  need  some  one  to  coddle  and  worry 
over.  I  have  not  spoken  to  you  of  your 
future,  because  I  wished  to  wait  until  you 
opened  the  subject.  It  is  too  late  for  you  to 
begin  your  professional  training  this  year, 
and  I  think  you  are  far  too  delicate  just 
now  to  undertake  so  arduous  a  work ;  how- 
ever, you  are  young,  and  that  can  wait  for  a 
bit.  As  to  the  story-telling  in  the  hospitals 
and  asylums,  I  wish  you  could  find  courage 
and  strength  to  go  on  with   that,  not   for 


164  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

your  own  sake  alone,  but  for  the  sake  of 
others. 

"  As  I  have  told  you  before,  the  money  is 
set  aside  for  that  special  purpose,  and  the 
work  will  be  carried  on  by  somebody.  Of 
course  I  can  get  a  substitute  if  you  refuse, 
and  that  substitute  may,  after  a  little  time, 
satisfy  the  impatient  children,  who  flatten 
their  noses  against  the  window-panes  and 
long  for  Miss  Pauline  every  day  of  their 
meagre  lives.  But  I  fear  the  substitute 
will  never  be  Polly !  She  may  '  rattle  round 
in  your  place '  (as  somebody  said  under 
different  circumstances),  but  she  can  never 
fill  it !  Why  not  spend  the  winter  with 
us,  and  do  this  lovely  work,  keeping  up 
other  studies  if  you  are  strong  enough? 
It  will  be  so  sweet  for  you  to  feel  that  out 
of  your  own  sadness  you  can  comfort  and 
brighten  the  lives  of  these  lonely,  suffering 
children  and  these  motherless  or  fatherless 
ones.  It  will  seem  hard  to  begin,  no  doubt ; 
but  new  life  will  flow  in  your  veins  when  you 
take  up  your  active,  useful  work  again. 
The  joyousness  that  God  put  into  your  soul 
before  you  were  born,  my  Polly,  is  a  sacred 
trust.  You  must  not  hide  it  in  a  napkin, 
dear,  or  bury  it,  or  lose  it.     It  was  given  to 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  165 

you  only  that  you  should  share  it  with  others. 
It  was  intended  for  the  world  at  large, 
though  it  was  bestowed  upon  you  in  partic- 
ular. Come,  dear,  to  one  who  knows  all 
about  it,  —  one  whom  you  are  sweet  enough 
to  call 

"Your  Fairy  Godmother." 

"Mrs.  Noble,"  said  Polly,  with  a  sober 
smile,  "the  Ancon  sails  on  the   20th,  and 
I  am  going  to  sail  with  her." 
"  So  soon  ?     What  for,  dear  ?  " 
"  I  am  going  to  be  a  banian-tree,  if  you 
please,"  answered  Polly. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

LIFE   IN  THE   BIRDS'   NEST. 

Polly  settled  down  in  the  Birds'  Nest 
under  the  protecting  wing  of  Mrs.  Bird,  and 
a  very  soft  and  unaccustomed  sort  of  shelter 
it  was. 

A  room  had  been  refurnished  expressly 
for  the  welcome  guest,  and  as  Mrs.  Bird 
pushed  her  gently  in  alone,  the  night  of 
her  arrival,  she  said,  "  This  is  the  Pilgrim 
Chamber,  Polly.  It  will  speak  our  wishes 
for  us." 

It  was  not  the  room  in  which  Polly  had 
been  ill  for  so  many  weeks ;  for  Mrs.  Bird 
knew  the  power  of  associations,  and  was 
unwilling  to  leave  any  reminder  of  those 
painful  days  to  sadden  the  girl's  new  life. 

As  Polly  looked  about  her,  she  was  almost 
awed  by  the  dazzling  whiteness.  The  room 
was  white  enough  for  an  angel,  she  thought. 
The  straw  matting  was  almost  concealed  by 
a  mammoth  rug  made  of  white  Japanese 
goatskins   sewed   together;    the   paint   was 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  167 

like  snow,  and  the  furniture  had  all  been 
painted  white,  save  for  the  delicate  silver 
lines  that  relieved  it.  There  were  soft,  full 
curtains  of  white  bunting  fringed  with  some- 
thing that  looked  like  thistle-down,  and  the 
bedstead  had  an  overhanging  canopy  of  the 
same.  An  open  fire  burned  in  the  little 
grate,  and  a  big  white  and  silver  rattan  chair 
was  drawn  cosily  before  it.  There  was  a 
girlish  dressing-table  with  its  oval  mirror 
draped  in  dotted  muslin ;  a  dainty  writing- 
desk  with  everything  convenient  upon  it ; 
and  in  one  corner  was  a  low  bookcase  of 
white  satin  wood.  On  the  top  of  this  case 
lay  a  card,  "  With  the  best  wishes  of  John 
Bird,"  and  along  the  front  of  the  upper 
shelf  were  painted  the  words  :  "  Come,  tell 
us  a  story !  "  Below  this  there  was  a  rich 
array  of  good  things.  The  Grimms,  Labou- 
laye,  and  Hans  Christian  Andersen  were  all 
there.  Mrs.  E wing's  "  Jackanapes  "  and 
Charles  Kingsley's  "  Water-Babies  "  jostled 
the  "  Seven  Little  Sisters  "  series ;  Haw- 
thorne's "  Wonder  -  Book  "  lay  close  to 
Lamb's  "  Tales  from  Shakespeare  ;  "  and 
Whittier's  "Child-Life  in  Prose  and  Poe- 
try "  stood  between  Mary  Howitt's  "  Chil- 
ren's  Year  "  and  Robert  Louis  Stevenson's 
"  Child's  Garden  of  Verses." 


168  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Polly  sat  upon  the  floor  before  the  book- 
case and  gloated  over  her  new  treasures, 
each  of  which  bore  her  name  on  the  fly-leaf. 

As  her  eye  rose  to  the  vase  of  snowy  pam- 
pas plumes  and  the  pictured  Madonna  and 
Child  above  the  bookcase,  it  wandered  still 
higher  until  it  met  a  silver  motto  painted 
on  a  blue  frieze  that  finished  the  top  of  the 
walls  where  they  met  the  ceiling. 

Polly  walked  slowly  round  the  room,  study- 
ing the  illuminated  letters :  "  And  they 
laid  the  Pilgrim  in  an  upper  chamber,  and 
the  name  of  the  chamber  was  Peace" 

This  brought  the  ready  tears  to  Polly's 
eyes.  "God  seems  to  give  me  everything 
but  what  I  want  most,"  she  thought ;  "  but 
since  He  gives  me  so  much,  I  must  not  ques- 
tion any  more ;  I  must  not  choose ;  I  must 
believe  that  He  wants  me  to  be  happy,  after 
all,  and  I  must  begin  and  try  to  be  good 
again." 

She  did  try  to  be  good.  She  came  down 
to  breakfast  the  next  morning,  announcing 
to  Mrs.  Bird,  with  her  grateful  morning 
kiss,  that  she  meant  to  "  live  up  to "  her 
room.  "  But  it  's  going  to  be  difficult,"  she 
confessed.  "  I  shall  not  dare  to  have  a 
naughty  thought  in  it;    it   seems   as    if   it 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  169 

would  be  written  somewhere  on  the  white- 
ness ! " 

"You  can  come  and  be  naughty  in  my 
bachelor  den,  Polly,"  said  Mr.  Bird,  smil- 
ing. "  Mrs.  Bird  does  n't  waste  any  girl- 
ish frills  and  poetic  decorations  and  mystical 
friezes  on  her  poor  brother-in-law !  He  is 
done  up  in  muddy  browns,  as  befits  his  age 
and  sex." 

Polly  insisted  on  beginning  her  work  the 
very  next  afternoon ;  but  she  had  strength 
only  for  three  appointments  a  week,  and 
Mrs.  Bird  looked  doubtfully  after  her  as  she 
walked  away  from  the  house  with  a  languid 
gait  utterly  unlike  her  old  buoyant  step. 

Edgar  often  came  in  the  evenings,  as  did 
Tom  and  Blanche  Mills,  and  Milly  Foster ; 
but  though  Polly  was  cheerful  and  com- 
posed, she  seldom  broke  into  her  old  flights 
of  nonsense. 

On  other  nights,  when  they  were  alone, 
she  prepared  for  her  hours  of  story-telling, 
and  in  this  she  was  wonderfully  helped  by 
Mr.  Bird's  suggestions  and  advice;  for  he 
was  a  student  of  literature  in  many  lan- 
guages, and  delighted  in  bringing  his  trea- 
sures before  so  teachable  a  pupil. 

"  She  has  a  sort  of  genius  that  astonishes 


170  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

me,"  said  he  one  morning,  as  he  chatted 
with  Mrs.  Bird  over  the  breakfast-table. 

Polly  had  excused  herself,  and  stood  at  the 
farther  library  window,  gazing  up  the  street 
vaguely  and  absently,  as  if  she  saw  some- 
thing beyond  the  hills  and  the  bay.  Mrs. 
Bird's  heart  sank  a  little  as  she  looked  at 
the  slender  figure  in  the  black  dress.  There 
were  no  dimples  about  the  sad  mouth,  and 
was  it  the  dress,  or  was  she  not  very  white 
these  latter  days  ?  —  so  white  that  her  hair 
encircled  her  face  with  absolute  glory,  and 
startled  one  with  its  color. 

"It  is  a  curious  kind  of  gift,"  continued 
Mr.  Bird,  glancing  at  his  morning  papers. 
"  She  takes  a  long  tale  of  Hans  Andersen's, 
for  instance,  and  after  an  hour  or  two,  when 
she  has  his  idea  fully  in  mind,  she  shows  me 
how  she  proposes  to  tell  it  to  the  younger 
children  at  the  Orphan  Asylum.  She  clasps 
her  hands  over  her  knees,  bends  forward 
toward  the  firelight,  and  tells  the  story  with 
such  simplicity  and  earnestness  that  I  am 
always  glad  she  is  looking  the  other  way 
and  cannot  see  the  tears  in  my  eyes.  I  cried 
like  a  school-girl  last  night  over  '  The  Ugly 
Duckling.'  She  has  natural  dramatic  in- 
stinct, a  great  deal  of  facial  expression,  power 


2g 


POLLY   .    .    .    STOOD  AT   THE  FARTHER  LIBRARY  WINDOW  W 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  171 

of  imitation,  and  an  almost  unerring  taste  in 
the  choice  of  words,  which  is  unusual  in  a 
girl  so  young  and  one  who  has  been  so  im- 
perfectly trained.  I  give  her  an  old  legend 
or  some  fragment  of  folk-lore,  and  straight- 
way she  dishes  it  up  for  me  as  if  it  had  been 
bone  of  her  bone  and  marrow  of  her  mar- 
row ;  she  knows  just  what  to  leave  out  and 
what  to  put  in,  somehow.  You  had  one  of 
your  happy  inspirations  about  that  girl, 
Margaret,  —  she  is  a  born  story-teller.  She 
ought  to  wander  about  the  country  with  a 
lute  under  her  arm.  Is  the  Olivers'  house 
insured  ?  " 

"  Good  gracious,  Jack !  you  have  a  kan- 
garoo sort  of  mind !  How  did  you  leap  to 
that  subject?  I'm  sure  I  don't  know,  but 
what  difference  does  it  make,  anyway  ?  " 

"  A  good  deal  of  difference,"  he  answered 
nervously,  looking  into  the  library  (yes, 
Polly  had  gone  out)  ;  "  because  the  house, 
the  furniture,  and  the  stable  were  burned  to 
the  ground  last  night,  —  so  the  morning 
paper  says." 

Mrs.  Bird  rose  and  closed  the  doors. 
"  That  does  seem  too  dreadful  to  be  true," 
she  said.  "  The  poor  child's  one  bit  of  prop- 
erty, her  only  stand-by  in  case  of  need !  Oh, 


172  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

it  can't  be  burned ;  and,  if  it  is,  it  must  be 
insured.  I  'm  afraid  a  second  blow  would 
break  her  down  completely  just  now,  when 
she  has  not  recoverd  from  the  first." 

Mr.  Bird  went  out  and  telegraphed  to  Dr. 
George  Edgerton :  — 

Is  Oliver  house  burned  ?  What  was  the 
amount  of  insurance,  if  any  ?     Answer. 

John  Bird. 

At  four  o'clock  the  reply  came  :  — 

House  and  outbuildings  burned.     No  in- 
surance.    Have   written   particulars.       No- 
thing but  piano  and  family  portraits  saved. 
George  Edgerton. 

In  an  hour  another  message,  marked  "  Col- 
lect," followed  the  first  one  :  — 

House  burned  last  night.  Defective  flue. 
No  carelessness  on  part  of  servants  or  fam- 
ily. Piano,  portraits,  ice-cream  freezer,  and 
wash-boiler  saved  by  superhuman  efforts 
of  husband.  Have  you  any  instructions  ? 
Have  taken  to  my  bed.  Accept  love  and 
sympathy. 

Clementine  Chadwick  Greenwood. 

So  it  was  true.  The  buildings  were 
burned,  and  there  was  no  insurance. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  173 

I  know  you  will  say  there  never  is,  in 
stories  where  the  heroine's  courage  is  to  be 
tested,  even  if  the  narrator  has  to  burn  down 
the  whole  township  to  do  it  satisfactorily. 
But  to  this  objection  I  can  make  only  this 
answer :  First,  that  this  house  really  did 
burn  down  ;  secondly,  that  there  really  was 
>  no  insurance  ;  and  thirdly,  if  this  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  did  not  sometimes 
happen  in  real  life,  it  would  never  occur  to 
a  story-teller  to  introduce  it  as  a  test  for 
heroes  and  heroines. 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Bird  despairingly, 
"  Polly  must  be  told.  Now,  will  you  do  it, 
or  shall  I  ?  Of  course  you  want  me  to  do 
it !  Men  never  have  any  courage  about 
these  things,  nor  any  tact  either." 

At  this  moment  the  subject  of  conversa- 
tion walked  into  the  room,  hat  and  coat  on, 
and  an  unwonted  color  in  her  cheeks.  Edgar 
Noble  followed  behind.  Polly  removed  her 
hat  and  coat  leisurely,  sat  down  on  a  has- 
sock on  the  hearth  rug,  and  ruffled  her  hair 
with  the  old  familiar  gesture,  almost  forgot- 
ten these  latter  days. 

Mrs.  Bird  looked  warningly  at  the  tell- 
tale yellow  telegrams  in  Mr.  Bird's  lap,  and 
strove  to  catch  his  eye  and  indicate  to  his 


174  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

dull  masculine  intelligence  the  necessity  of 
hiding  them  until  they  could  devise  a  plan 
of  breaking  the  sad  news. 

Mrs.  Bird's  glance  and  Mr.  Bird's  entire 
obliviousness  were  too  much  for  Polly's 
gravity.  To  their  astonishment  she  burst 
into  a  peal  of  laughter. 

"  '  My  lodging  is  on  the  cold,  cold  ground, 
And  hard,  very  hard  is  my  fare  !  '  " 

she  sang,  to  the  tune  of  "  Believe  me,  if 
all  those  endearing  young  charms."  "  So 
you  know  all  about  it,  too  ?  " 

"How  did  you  hear  it?"  gasped  Mrs. 
Bird. 

"  I  bought  the  evening  paper  to  see  if  that 
lost  child  at  the  asylum  had  been  found. 
Edgar  jumped  on  the  car,  and  seemed  deter- 
mined that  I  should  not  read  the  paper  until 
I  reached  home.  He  was  very  kind,  but 
slightly  bungling  in  his  attentions.  I  knew 
then  that  something  was  wrong,  but  just 
what  was  beyond  my  imagination,  unless 
Jack  Howard  had  been  expelled  from  Har- 
vard, or  Bell  Winship  had  been  lost  at  sea 
on  the  way  home  ;  so  I  persisted  in  reading, 
and  at  last  I  found  the  fatal  item.  I  don't 
know  whether  Edgar  expected  me  to  faint 
at  sight !    I  'm  not  one  of  the  fainting  sort !  " 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  175 

"  I  'm  relieved  that  you  can  take  it  so 
calmly.  I  have  been  shivering  with  dread 
all  day,  and  Jack  and  I  have  been  quarrel- 
ing as  to  which  should  break  it  to  you." 

"  Break  it  to  me !  "  echoed  Polly,  in 
superb  disdain.  "My  dear  Fairy  God- 
mother, you  must  think  me  a  weak  sort  of 
person !  As  if  the  burning  down  of  one 
patrimonial  estate  could  shatter  my  nerves ! 
What  is  a  passing  home  or  so  ?  Let  it  burn, 
by  all  means,  if  it  likes.  '  He  that  is  down 
need  fear  no  fall.'  " 

"It  is  your  only  property,"  said  Mr.  Bird, 
trying  to  present  the  other  side  of  the  case 
properly,  "  and  it  was  not  insured." 

"What  of  that?"  she  asked  briskly. 
"  Am  I  not  housed  and  fed  like  a  princess  at 
the  present  moment  ?  Have  I  not  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  in  the  bank,  and  am 
I  not  earning  twenty-five  dollars  a  month 
with  absolute  regularity  ?  Avaunt,  cold 
Fear ! " 

"  How  was  it  that  the  house  was  not  in- 
sured ?  "  asked  Mr.  Bird. 

"  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know.  It  was  insured 
once  upon  a  time,  if  I  remember  right; 
when  it  got  uninsured,  I  can't  tell.  How  do 
things  get  uninsured,  Mr.  Bird  ?  " 


176  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"The  insurance  lapses,  of  course,  if  the 
premium  is  n't  regularly  paid." 

"  Oh,  that  would  account  for  it !  "  said 
Polly  easily.  "  There  were  quantities  of 
things  that  were  n't  paid  regularly,  though 
they  were  always  paid  in  course  of  time. 
You  ought  to  have  asked  me  if  we  were 
insured,  Edgar,  —  you  were  the  boy  of  the 
house,  —  insurance  is  n't  a  girl's  department. 
Let  me  see  the  telegrams,  please." 

They  all  laughed  heartily  over  Mrs.  Green- 
wood's characteristic  message. 

"  Think  of  '  husband  '  bearing  that  aged 
ice-cream  freezer  and  that  leaky  boiler  to  a 
place  of  safety  !  "  exclaimed  Polly.  "  'All 
that  was  left  of  them,  left  of  six  hundred  ! ' 
Well,  my  family  portraits,  piano,  freezer,  and 
boiler  will  furnish  a  humble  cot  very  nicely 
in  my  future  spinster  days.  By  the  way,  the 
land  did  n't  burn  up,  I  suppose,  and  that 
must  be  good  for  something,  is  n't  it  ?  " 

"Rather,"  answered  Edgar;  "a  corner 
lot  on  the  best  street  in  town,  four  blocks 
from  the  new  hotel  site  !  It 's  worth  eighteen 
hundred  or  two  thousand  dollars,  at  least." 

"  Then  why  do  you  worry  about  me,  good 
people  ?  I  'm  not  a  heroine.  If  I  were  sit- 
ting on  the  curbstone  without  a  roof  to  my 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  177 

head,  and  did  n't  know  where  I  should  get 
my  dinner,  I  should  cry  !  But  I  smell  my 
dinner  "(here  she  sniffed  pleasurably),  "  and 
I  think  it  's  chicken  !  You  see,  it  's  so  dif- 
ficult for  me  to  realize  that  I  'm  a  pauper, 
living  here,  a  pampered  darling  in  the  halls 
of  wealth,  with  such  a  large  income  rolling 
up  daily  that  I  shall  be  a  prey  to  fortune- 
hunters  by  the  time  I  am  twenty  !  Pshaw ! 
don't  worry  about  me  !  This  is  just  the  sort 
of  diet  I  have  been  accustomed  to  from  my 
infancy!     I  rather  enjoy  it !  " 

Whereupon  Edgar  recited  an  impromptu 
nonsense  verse :  — 

' '  There  's  a  queer  little  maiden  named  Polly, 
Who  always  knows  when  to  he  jolly. 

When  ruined  hy  fire 

Her  spirits  rise  higher, 
This  most  inconsistent  Miss  Polly.  " 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  CANDLE  CALLED  PATIENCE. 

The  burning  of  the  house  completely  pros- 
trated Mrs.  Clementine  Churchill  Chadwick 
Greenwood,  who,  it  is  true,  had  the  actual 
shock  of  the  conflagration  to  upset  her  ner- 
vous system,  though  she  suffered  no  financial 
loss. 

Mr.  Greenwood  was  heard  to  remark  that 
he  wished  he  could  have  foreseen  that  the 
house  would  burn  down,  for  now  he  should 
have  to  move  anyway,  and  if  he  had  known 
that  a  few  months  before,  why  — 

Here  the  sentence  always  ended  mys- 
teriously, and  the  neighbors  finished  it  as 
they  liked. 

The  calamity  affected  Polly,  on  the  other 
hand,  very  much  like  a  tonic.  She  felt  the 
necessity  of  "  bracing  "  to  meet  the  fresh  re- 
sponsibilities that  seemed  waiting  for  her  in 
the  near  future  ;  and  night  and  day,  in  sleep- 
ing  and   waking,    resting   and    working,    a 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  179 

plan  was  formulating  itself  in  the  brain  just 
roused  from  its  six  months'  apathy,  —  a 
novel,  astonishing,  enchanting,  revolutionary 
plan,  which  she  bided  her  time  to  disclose. 

The  opportunity  came  one  evening  after 
dinner,  when  Mrs.  Bird  and  her  brother, 
Eclgar  and  herself,  were  gathered  in  the 
library. 

The  library  was  a  good  place  in  which  to 
disclose  plans,  or  ask  advice,  or  whisper  con- 
fidences. The  great  carved  oak  mantel  held 
on  the  broad  space  above  the  blazing  logs  the 
graven  motto,  "  Esse  Quod  Opto."  The 
walls  were  lined  with  books  from  floor  half- 
way to  ceiling,  and  from  the  tops  of  the  cases 
Plato,  Socrates,  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  the 
Sage  of  Concord  looked  down  with  benignant 
wisdom.  The  table  in  the  centre  was  cov- 
ered with  a  methodical  litter  of  pamphlets 
and  magazines,  and  a  soft  light  came  from 
the  fire  and  from  two  tall,  shaded  lamps. 

Mr.  Bird,  as  was  his  wont,  leaned  back  in 
his  leather  chair,  puffing  delicate  rings  of 
smoke  into  the  air.  Edgar  sat  by  the  centre- 
table,  idly  playing  with  a  paper-knife.  Mrs. 
Bird  sat  in  her  low  rocking-chair  with  a  bit 
of  fancy-work,  and  Polly,  on  the  hearth  rug, 
leaned  cosily  back  against  her  Fairy  God- 
mother's knees. 


180  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

The  clinging  tendrils  in  Polly's  nature, 
left  hanging  so  helplessly  when  her  mother 
was  torn  away,  reached  out  more  and  more 
to  wind  themselves  about  lovely  Mrs.  Bird, 
who,  notwithstanding  her  three  manly  sons, 
had  a  place  in  her  heart  left  sadly  vacant 
by  the  loss  of  her  only  daughter. 

Polly  broke  one  of  the  pleasant  silences. 

An  open  fire  makes  such  delightful  si- 
lences, if  you  ever  noticed.  When  you  sit 
in  a  room  without  it,  the  gaps  in  the  con- 
versation make  everybody  seem  dull;  the 
last  comer  rises  with  embarrassment  and 
thinks  he  must  be  going,  and  you  wish  that 
some  one  would  say  the  next  thing  and  keep 
the  ball  rolling.  The  open  fire  arranges 
all  these  little  matters  with  a  perfect  tact 
and  grace  all  its  own.  It  is  acknowledged 
to  be  the  centre  of  attraction,  and  the  people 
gathered  about  it  are  only  supernumeraries. 
It  blazes  and  crackles  and  snaps  cheerily, 
the  logs  break  and  fall,  the  coals  glow  and 
fade  and  glow  again,  and  the  dull  man  can 
always  poke  the  fire  if  his  wit  desert  him. 
Who  ever  feels  like  telling  a  precious  secret 
over  a  steam-heater? 

Polly  looked  away  from  everybody  and 
gazed  straight  into  the  blaze. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  181 

"  I  have  been  thinking  over  a  plan  for  my 
future  work,"  she  said,  "  and  I  want  to  tell 
it  to  you  and  see  if  you  all  approve  and 
think  me  equal  to  it.  It  used  to  come  to  me 
in  flashes,  after  this  Fairy  Godmother  of 
mine  opened  an  avenue  for  my  surplus  energy 
by  sending  me  out  as  a  story-teller;  but 
lately  I  have  n't  had  any  heart  for  it.  Work 
grew  monotonous  and  disagreeable  and  hope- 
less, and  I  'm  afraid  I  had  no  wish  to  be  useful 
or  helpful  to  myself  or  to  anybody  else.  But 
now  everything  is  different.  I  am  not  so 
rich  as  I  was  (I  wish,  Mr.  Bird,  you  would 
not  smile  so  provokingly  when  I  mention  my 
riches  !),  and  I  must  not  be  idle  any  longer; 
so  this  is  my  plan.  I  want  to  be  a  story- 
teller by  profession.  Perhaps  you  will  say 
that  nobody  has  ever  done  it;  but  surely 
that  is  an  advantage  ;  I  should  have  the 
field  to  myself  for  a  while,  at  least.  I  have 
dear  Mrs.  Bird's  little  poor  children  as  a 
foundation.  Now,  I  would  like  to  get  groups 
of  other  children  together  in  somebody's  par- 
lor twice  a  week  and  tell  them  stories,  —  the 
older  children  one  day  in  the  week  and  the 
younger  ones  another.  Of  course  I  have  n't 
thought  out  all  the  details,  because  I  hoped 
my  Fairy  Godmother  would  help  me  there, 


182  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

if  she  approved  of  my  plan  ;  but  I  have  ever 
so  many  afternoons  all  arranged,  and  enough 
stories  and  songs  at  my  tongue's  end  for 
three  months.  Do  you  think  it  impossible 
or  nonsensical,  Mr.  Bird  ?  " 

"No,"  said  he  thoughtfully,  after  a  mo- 
ment's pause.  "  It  seems  on  the  first  hear- 
ing to  be  perfectly  feasible.  In  fact,  in  one 
sense  it  will  not  be  an  experiment  at  all. 
You  have  tried  your  powers,  gained  self-pos- 
session and  command  of  your  natural  re- 
sources ;  developed  your  ingenuity,  learned 
the  technicalities  of  your  art,  so  to  speak,  al- 
ready. You  propose  now,  as  I  understand, 
to  extend  your  usefulness,  widen  your  sphere 
of  action,  address  yourself  to  a  larger  public, 
and  make  a  profession  out  of  what  was  before 
only  a  side  issue  in  your  life.  It 's  a  new 
field,  and  it  's  a  noble  one,  taken  in  its  high- 
est aspect,  as  you  have  always  taken  it.  My 
motto  for  you,  Polly,  is  Goethe's  couplet :  — 

'  What  you  can  do,  or  dream  you  can,  begin  it. 
Boldness  has  genius,  power,  and  magic  in  it.' " 

"  Make  way  for  the  story-teller !  "  cried 
Edgar.  "  I  will  buy  season  tickets  for  both 
your  groups,  if  you  will  only  make  your  limit 
of  age  include  me.  I  am  only  five  feet  ten, 
and  I  '11  sit  very  low  if  you  '11  admit  me  to 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  183 

the  charmed  circle.  Shall  you  have  a  stage 
name  ?  I  would  suggest  '  The  Seraphic 
Sapphira.'  " 

"  Now,  don't  tease,"  said  Polly,  with  dig- 
nity ;  "  this  is  in  sober  earnest.  What  do 
you  think,  Fairy  Godmother  ?  I  've  written 
to  my  dear  Miss  Mary  Denison  in  Santa 
Barbara,  and  she  likes  the  idea." 

"  I  think  it  is  charming.  In  fact,  I  can 
hardly  wait  to  begin.  I  will  be  your  busi- 
ness manager,  my  Pollykins,  and  we  '11  make 
it  a  success,  if  it  is  possible.  If  you  '11  take 
me  into  your  confidence  and  tell  me  what 
you  mean  to  do,  I  will  plan  the  hows  and 
whens  and  wheres." 

"  You  see,  dear  people,"  continued  Polly, 
w  it  is  really  the  only  thing  that  I  know  how 
to  do  ;  and  I  have  had  several  months'  ex- 
perience, so  that  I  'm  not  entirely  untrained. 
I  'm  not  afraid  any  more,  so  long  as  it  is 
only  children;  though  the  presence  of  one 
grown  person  makes  me  tongue-tied.  Grown- 
up people  never  know  how  to  listen,  somehow, 
and  they  make  you  more  conscious  of  your- 
self. But  when  the  children  gaze  up  at  you 
with  their  shining  eyes  and  their  parted  lips, 
—  the  smiles  just  longing  to  be  smiled  and 
the   tear-drops  just  waiting   to  glisten,  —  I 


184  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

don't  know  what  there  is  about  it,  but  it 
makes  you  wish  you  could  go  on  forever  and 
never  break  the  spell.  And  it  makes  you 
tremble,  too,  for  fear  you  should  say  any- 
thing wrong.  You  seem  so  close  to  children 
when  you  are  telling  them  stories ;  just  as  if 
a  little,  little  silken  thread  spun  itself  out 
from  one  side  of  your  heart  through  each  of 
theirs,  until  it  came  back  to  be  fastened  in 
your  own  again;  and  it  holds  so  tight,  so 
tight,  when  you  have  done  your  best  and  the 
children  are  pleased  and  grateful." 

For  days  after  this  discussion  Polly  felt 
as  if  she  were  dwelling  on  a  mysterious 
height  from  which  she  could  see  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  earth.  She  said  little  and 
thought  much  (oh,  that  this  should  come 
to  be  written  of  Polly  Oliver!).  The  past 
which  she  had  regretted  with  such  passionate 
fervor  still  fought  for  a  place  among  present 
plans  and  future  hopes.  But  she  was  almost 
convinced  in  these  days  that  a  benevolent 
Power  might  after  all  be  helping  her  to  work 
out  her  own  salvation  in  an  appointed  way, 
with  occasional  weariness  and  tears,  like 
the  rest  of  the  world. 

It  was  in  such  a  softened  mood  that  she 
sat  alone  in  church  one  Sunday  afternoon  at 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  185 

vespers.  She  had  chosen  a  place  where  she 
was  sure  of  sitting  quietly  by  herself,  and 
where  the  rumble  of  the  organ  and  the  words 
of  the  service  would  come  to  her  soothingly. 
The  late  afternoon  sun  shone  through  the 
stained-glass  windows,  bringing  out  the  ten- 
der blue  on  the  Madonna's  gown,  the  white 
on  the  wings  of  angels  and  robes  of  new- 
born innocents,  the  glow  of  rose  and  car- 
mine, with  here  and  there  a  glorious  gleam 
of  Tyrian  purple.  Then  her  eyes  fell  on 
a  memorial  window  opposite  her.  A  mo- 
ther bowed  with  grief  was  seated  on  some 
steps  of  rough-hewn  stones.  The  glory  of 
her  hair  swept  about  her  knees.  Her 
arms  were  empty ;  her  hands  locked ;  her 
head  bent.  Above  stood  a  little  child,  with 
hand  just  extended  to  open  a  great  door, 
which  was  about  to  unclose  and  admit  him. 
He  reached  up  his  hand  fearlessly  ("  and 
that  is  faith,"  thought  Polly),  and  at  the 
same  time  he  glanced  down  at  his  weeping 
mother,  as  if  to  say,  "  Look  up,  mother  dear  ! 
I  am  safely  in." 

Just  then  the  choir  burst  into  a  grand 
hymn  which  was  new  to  Polly,  and  which 
came  to  her  with  the  force  of  a  personal 
message :  — 


186  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

"  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war, 

A  kingly  crown  to  gain  ; 
His  blood-red  banner  streams  afar  — 

Who  follows  in  His  train  ? 
Who  best  can  drink  his  cup  of  woe, 

Triumphant  over  pain, 
Who  patient  bears  his  cross  below, 

He  follows  in  His  train." 

Verse  after  verse  rang  in  splendid  strength 
through  the  solemn  aisles  of  the  church,  end- 
ing with  the  lines :  — 

"  O  God,  to  us  may  strength  be  given 
To  follow  in  His  train  !  ' ' 

Dr.  George's  voice  came  to  Polly  as  it 
sounded  that  gray  October  afternoon  beside 
the  sea :  "  When  the  sun  of  one's  happiness 
is  set,  one  lights  a  candle  called  '  Patience,' 
and  guides  one's  footsteps  by  that." 

She  leaned  her  head  on  the  pew  in  front 
of  her,  and  breathed  a  prayer.  The  minis- 
ter was  praying  for  the  rest  of  the  people, 
but  she  needed  to  utter  her  own  thought  just 
then. 

"  Father  in  heaven,  I  will  try  to  follow ; 
I  have  lighted  my  little  candle,  help  me  to 
keep  it  burning  !  I  shall  stumble  often  in  the 
darkness,  I  know,  for  it  was  all  so  clear 
when  I  could  walk  by  my  darling  mother's 
light,  which  was  like  the  sun,  so  bright,  so 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  187 

pure,  so  strong !  Help  me  to  keep  the  lit- 
tle candle  steady,  so  that  it  may  throw  its 
beams  farther  and  farther  into  the  pathway 
that  now  looks  so  dim." 


Polly  sank  to  sleep  that  night  in  her 
white  bed  in  the  Pilgrim  Chamber ;  and  the 
name  of  the  chamber  was  Peace  indeed,  for 
she  had  a  smile  on  her  lips,  —  a  smile  that 
looked  as  if  the  little  candle  had  in  truth 
been  lighted  in  her  soul,  and  was  shining 
through  her  face  as  though  it  were  a  window. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

POLLY  LAUNCHES  HER  SHIPS. 

There  were  great  doings  in  the  Birds' 
Nest. 

A  hundred  dainty  circulars,  printed  in 
black  and  scarlet  on  Irish  linen  paper,  had 
been  sent  to  those  ladies  on  Mrs.  Bird's  call- 
ing-list who  had  children  between  the  ages 
of  five  and  twelve,  that  being  Polly's  chosen 
limit  of  age. 

These  notes  of  invitation  read  as  follows :  — 

"  Come,  tell  us  a  story !  " 
THE  CHILDREN'S  HOUR. 

Mrs.  Donald  Bird  requests  the  pleasure  of  your 
company  from  4.30  to  5.30  o'clock  on  Mondays  or 
Thursdays  from  November  to  March  inclusive. 

First  Group  :  Mondays.  Children  from  5  to  8  years. 
Second  Group  :  Thursdays.     "         "     8  "  12  years. 

Each  group  limited  in  number  to  twenty-four. 

Miss  Pauline  Oliver  will  tell  stories  suitable  to  the 
ages  of  the  children,  adapted  to  their  prevailing  in- 
terests, and  appropriate  to  the  special  months  of  the 
year. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  189 

These  stories  will  be  chosen  with  the  greatest  care, 
and  will  embrace  representative  tales  of  all  classes,  — 
narrative,  realistic,  scientific,  imaginative,  and  his- 
torical. They  will  be  illustrated  by  songs  and  black- 
board sketches.  Terms  for  the  Series  (Twenty 
Hours),  Five  Dollars. 

K.  S.  V.  P. 

Polly  felt  an  absolute  sense  of  suffocation 
as  she  saw  Mrs.  Bird  seal  and  address  the 
last  square  envelope. 

"  If  anybody  does  come,"  she  said,  some- 
what sadly,  "  I  am  afraid  it  will  be  only  that 
the  story  hour  is  at  your  lovely  house." 

"  Don't  be  so  foolishly  independent,  my 
child.  If  I  gather  the  groups,  it  is  only  you 
who  will  be  able  to  hold  them  together.  I 
am  your  manager,  and  it  is  my  duty  to  make 
the  accessories  as  perfect  as  possible.  When 
the  scenery  and  costumes  and  stage-settings 
are  complete,  you  enter  and  do  the  real 
work.  I  retire,  and  the  sole  responsibility 
for  success  or  failure  rests  upon  your  shoul- 
ders ;  I  should  think  that  would  be  enough 
to  satisfy  the  most  energetic  young  woman. 
I  had  decided  on  the  library  as  the  scene  of 
action;  an  open  fire  is  indispensable,  and 
that  room  is  delightfully  large  when  the 
centre-table  is  lifted  out:  but  I  am  afraid 
it  is  hardly  secluded  enough,  and  that  people 


190  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

might  trouble  you  by  coming  in;  so  what 
do  you  think  of  the  music -room  upstairs? 
You  will  have  your  fire,  your  piano,  plenty 
of  space,  and  a  private  entrance  for  the 
chicks,  who  can  lay  their  wraps  in  the  hall 
as  they  pass  up.  I  will  take  the  large  Turk- 
ish rug  from  the  red  guest-chamber,  —  that 
will  make  the  room  look  warmer,  —  and  I 
have  a  dozen  other  charming  devices  which 
I  will  give  you  later  as  surprises." 

"  If  I  were  half  as  sure  of  my  part  as  I 
am  of  yours,  dear  Fairy  Godmother,  we 
should  have  nothing  to  fear.  I  have  a  gen- 
eral plan  mapped  out  for  the  stories,  but  a 
great  deal  of  the  work  will  have  to  be  done 
from  week  to  week,  as  I  go  on.  I  shall  use 
the  same  programme  in  the  main  for  both 
groups,  but  I  shall  simplify  everything  and 
illustrate  more  freely  for  the  little  ones, 
telling  the  historical  and  scientific  stories 
with  much  more  detail  to  the  older  group. 
This  is  what  Mr.  Bird  calls  my  s  basic  idea,' 
which  will  be  filled  out  from  week  to  week 
according  to  inspiration.  For  November,  I 
shall  make  autumn,  the  harvest,  and  Thanks- 
giving the  starting-point.  I  am  all  ready 
with  my  historical  story  of  'The  First 
Thanksgiving,'    for    I  told    it  at   the  Chil- 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  191 

dren's  Hospital  last  year,  and  it  went  beau- 
tifully. 

"  I  have  one  doll  dressed  in  Dutch  costume, 
to  show  how  the  children  looked  that  the 
little  Pilgrims  played  with  in  Holland ;  and 
another  dressed  like  a  Puritan  maiden,  to 
show  them  the  simple  old  New  England 
gown.  Then  I  have  two  fine  pictures  of 
Miles  Standish  and  the  Indian  chief  Mas- 
sasoit. 

"  For  December  and  January  I  shall  have 
Christmas  and  winter,  and  frost  and  ice  and 
snow,  with  the  contrasts  of  eastern  and  Cali- 
fornian  climates." 

"  I  can  get  the  Immigration  Bureau  to  give 
you  a  percentage  on  that  story,  Polly,"  said 
Uncle  Jack  Bird,  who  had  strolled  in  and 
taken  a  seat.  "  Just  make  your  facts  strong 
enough,  and  you  can  make  a  handsome  thing 
out  of  that  idea." 

"  Don't  interrupt  us,  Jack,"  said  Mrs. 
Bird ;  "  and  go  directly  out,  if  you  please. 
You  were  not  asked  to  this  party." 

"  Where  was  I  ?  "  continued  Polly.  "  Oh 
yes,  —  the  contrast  between  Calif ornian  and 
eastern  winters  ;  and  January  will  have  a 
moral  story  or  two,  you  know,  —  New  Year's 
resolutions,  and  all  that.     February  will  be 


192  POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

full  of  sentiment  and  patriotism,  —  St.  Val- 
entine's Day  and  Washington's  Birthday,  — 
I  can  hardly  wait  for  that,  there  are  so  many 
lovely  things  to  do  in  that  month.  March 
will  bring  in  the  first  hint  of  spring.  The 
winds  will  serve  for  my  science  story ;  and 
as  it  chances  to  be  a  presidential  year,  we 
will  celebrate  Inauguration  Day,  and  have 
some  history,  if  a  good  many  subscribers 
come  in." 

"  Why  do  you  say '  if,'  Polly  ?  Multitudes 
of  names  are  coming  in.  I  have  told  you  so 
from  the  beginning." 

"  Very  well,  then ;  when  a  sufficient  number 
of  names  are  entered,  I  should  like  to  spend 
ten  dollars  on  a  very  large  sand-table,  which 
I  can  use  with  the  younger  group  for  illustra- 
tions. It  is  perfectly  clean  work,  and  I  have 
helped  Miss  Denison  and  her  children  to  do 
the  loveliest  things  with  it.  She  makes  ge- 
ography lessons,  —  plains,  hills,  mountains, 
valleys,  rivers,  and  lakes ;  or  the  children 
make  a  picture  of  the  story  they  have  just 
heard.  I  saw  them  do  '  Over  the  River  and 
through  the  Wood  to  Grandfather's  House 
we  go,'  '  Washington's  Winter  Camp  at 
Valley  Forge,'  and  'The  Midnight  Ride 
of  Paid  Revere.'     I  have  ever  so  many  songs 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  193 

chosen,  and  those  for  November  and  Decem- 
ber are  almost  learned  without  my  notes. 
I  shall  have  to  work  very  hard  to  be  ready 
twice  a  week  !  " 

"  Too  hard,  I  fear,"  said  Mrs.  Bird  anx- 
iously. 

"  Oh  no  ;  not  a  bit  too  hard !  If  the  chil- 
dren are  only  interested,  I  shall  not  mind 
any  amount  of  trouble.  By  the  way,  dear 
Mrs.  Bird,  you  won't  let  the  nurses  or  mo- 
thers stand  in  the  doorways?  You  will 
please  see  that  I  am  left  quite  alone  with  the 
children,  won't  you?  " 

"  Certainly ;  no  mothers  shall  be  admit- 
ted, if  they  make  you  nervous ;  it  is  the  chil- 
dren's hour.  But  after  two  or  three  months, 
when  you  have  all  become  acquainted,  and 
the  children  are  accustomed  to  listening 
attentively,  I  almost  hope  you  will  allow  a 
few  nurses  to  come  in  and  sit  in  the  cor- 
ners,—  the  ones  who  bring  the  youngest 
children,  for  example  ;  it  would  be  such  a 
means  of  education  to  them.  There 's  an- 
other idea  for  you  next  year,  —  a  nurses' 
class  in  story-telling." 

"  It  would  be  rather  nice,  would  n't  it  ?  — 
and  I  should  be  older  then,  and  more  ex- 
perienced.    I  really  think  I  could  do  it,  if 


194  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Miss  Denison  would  help  me  by  talks  and 
instructions.  She  will  be  here  next  year. 
Oh,  how  the  little  plan  broadens  out !  " 

"  And,  Polly,  you  have  chosen  to  pay  for 
your  circulars,  and  propose  to  buy  your 
sand-table.  This  I  agree  to,  if  you  insist 
upon  it ;  though  why  I  should  n't  help  my 
godchild  I  cannot  quite  understand.  But 
knowing  you  were  so  absorbed  in  other  mat- 
ters that  you  would  forget  the  frivolities, 
and  remembering  that  you  have  been  wear- 
ing the  same  two  dresses  for  months,  I  have 
ventured  to  get  you  some  pretty  gowns  for 
the  '  story  hours,'  and  I  want  you  to  accept 
them  for  your  Christmas  present.  They 
will  serve  for  all  your  '  afternoons  '  and  for 
our  home  dinners,  as  you  will  not  be  going 
out  anywhere  this  winter." 

"  Oh,  how  kind  you  are,  Mrs.  Bird  !  You 
load  me  with  benefits,  and  how  can  I  ever 
repay  you  ?  " 

"  You  do  not  have  to  repay  them  to  me 
necessarily,  my  child;  you  can  pass  them 
over,  as  you  will  be  constantly  doing,  to  all 
these  groups  of  children,  day  after  day.  I 
am  a  sort  of  stupid,  rich  old  lady  who  serves 
as  a  source  of  supply.  My  chief  brilliancy 
lies  in  devising  original  methods  of  getting 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  195 

rid  of  my  surplus  in  all  sorts  of  odd  and  de- 
lightful ways,  left  untried,  for  the  most  part, 
by  other  people.  I  Ve  been  buying  up 
splendid  old  trees  in  the  outskirts  of  certain 
'New  England  country  towns,  —  trees  that 
were  in  danger  of  being  cut  down  for  wood. 
Twenty-five  to  forty  dollars  buys  a  glorious 
tree,  and  it  is  safe  for  ever  and  ever  to  give 
shade  to  the  tired  traveler  and  beauty  to 
the  landscape.  Each  of  my  boys  has  his  pet 
odd  scheme  for  helping  the  world  to  4go 
right.'  Donald,  for  instance,  puts  stamps 
on  the  unstamped  letters  displayed  in 
the  Cambridge  post-office,  and  sends  them 
spinning  on  their  way.  He  never  receives 
the  thanks  of  the  careless  writers,  but  he 
takes  pleasure  in  making  things  straight, 
Paul  writes  me  from  Phillips  Academy  that 
this  year  he  is  sending  the  nine  Ruggles 
children  (a  poor  family  of  our  acquaint- 
ance) to  some  sort  of  entertainment  once 
every  month.  Hugh  has  just  met  a  lovely 
girl  who  has  induced  him  to  help  her  main- 
tain a  boarding  establishment  for  sick  and 
deserted  cats  and  dogs ;  and  there  we  are !  " 
"  But  I  'm  a  young,  strong  girl,  and  I  fear 
I  'm  not  so  worthy  an  object  of  charity  as  a 
tree,  an  unstamped  letter,  an  infant  Ruggles, 


196  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

or  a  deserted  cat !  Still,  I  know  the  dresses 
will  be  lovely,  and  I  had  quite  forgotten  that 
I  must  be  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen 
for  five  months  to  come.  It  would  have  been 
one  of  my  first  thoughts  last  year,  I  am 
afraid ;  but  lately  this  black  dress  has  shut 
everything  else  from  my  sight." 

"  It  was  my  thought  that  you  should  give 
up  your  black  dress  just  for  these  occasions, 
dear,  and  wear  something  more  cheerful  for 
the  children's  sake.  The  dresses  are  very 
simple,  for  I  've  heard  you  say  you  can  never 
tell  a  story  when  you  are  '  dressed  up,'  but 
they  will  please  you,  I  know.  They  will  be 
brought  home  this  evening,  and  you  must  slip 
them  all  on,  and  show  yourself  to  us  in 
each." 

They  would  have  pleased  anybody,  even  a 
princess,  Polly  thought,  as  she  stood  before 
her  bed  that  evening  patting  the  four  pretty 
new  waists,  and  smoothing  with  childlike 
delight  the  folds  of  the  four  pretty  skirts. 
It  was  such  an  odd  sensation  to  have  four 
dresses  at  a  time ! 

They  were  of  simple  and  inexpensive  ma- 
terials, as  was  appropriate  ;  but  Mrs.  Bird's 
exquisite  taste  and  feeling  for  what  would 
suit   Polly's   personality   made   them   more 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  197 

attractive  than  if  they  had  been  rich  or 
expensive. 

There  was  a  white  China  silk,  with  belt 
and  shoulder-knots  of  black  velvet ;  a  white 
Japanese  crepe,  with  purple  lilacs  strewed 
over  its  surface,  and  frills  of  violet  ribbon 
for  ornament;  a  Christmas  dress  of  soft, 
white  camel's  hair,  with  bands  of  white-fox 
fur  round  the  slightly  pointed  neck  and 
elbow-sleeves ;  and,  last  of  all,  a  Quaker 
gown  of  silver-gray  nun's  cloth,  with  a  sur- 
plice and  full  undersleeves  of  white  crepe- 
lisse. 

"  I  'm  going  to  be  vain,  Mrs.  Bird  !  "  cried 
Polly,  with  compunction  in  her  voice.  "  I  've 
never  had  a  real  beautiful,  undyed,  un-made- 
over  dress  in  my  whole  life,  and  I  shall 
never  have  strength  of  character  to  own  four 
at  once  without  being  vain  !  " 

This  speech  was  uttered  through  the  crack 
of  the  library  door,  outside  of  which  Polly 
stood,  gathering  courage  to  walk  in  and  be 
criticised. 

"  Think  of  your  aspiring  nose,  Sapphira  !  " 
came  from  a  voice  within. 

"  Oh,  are  you  there  too,  Edgar  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  am,  and  so  is  Tom  Mills. 
The  news  that  you  are  going  to  '  try  on  '  is 


198  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

all  over  the  neighborhood !  If  you  have 
cruelly  fixed  the  age  limit  so  that  we  can't 
possibly  get  in  to  the  performances,  we  are 
going  to  attend  all  the  dress  rehearsals. 
Oh,  ye  little  fishes  !  what  a  seraphic  Sap- 
phira !     I  wish  Tony  were  here  !  " 

She  was  pretty,  there  was  no  doubt  about 
it,  as  she  turned  around  like  a  revolving 
wax  figure  in  a  show-window,  and  assumed 
absurd  fashion-plate  attitudes;  and  pretty 
chiefly  because  of  the  sparkle,  intelligence, 
sunny  temper,  and  vitality  that  made  her 
so  magnetic. 

Nobody  could  decide  which  was  the  love- 
liest dress,  even  when  she  had  appeared  in 
each  one  twice.  In  the  lilac  and  white  crepe, 
with  a  bunch  of  dark  Parma  violets  thrust 
in  her  corsage,  Uncle  Jack  called  her  a  poem. 
Edgar  asserted  openly  that  in  the  Christmas 
toilet  he  should  like  to  have  her  modeled 
in  wax  and  put  in  a  glass  case  on  his  table : 
but  Mrs.  Bird  and  Tom  Mills  voted  for 
the  Quaker  gray,  in  which  she  made  herself 
inexpressibly  demure  by  braiding  her  hair 
in  two  discreet  braids  down  her  back. 

"The  dress  rehearsal  is  over.  Good- 
night all !  "  she  said,  as  she  took  her  candle. 
"  I  will  say  4  handsome  is  as  handsome  does  ' 


FOLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  199 

fifty  times  before  I  go  to  sleep,  and  perhaps 
—  I  only  say  perhaps  —  I  may  be  used  to 
my  beautiful  clothes  in  a  week  or  two,  so  that 
I  shall  be  my  usual  modest  self  again." 

"  Good-night,  Polly,"  said  the  boys ;  "  we 
will  see  you  to-morrow." 

"  '  Pauline,'  if  you  please,  not  "  Polly.'  I 
ceased  to  be  Polly  this  morning  when  the  cir- 
culars were  posted.  I  am  now  Miss  Pauline 
Oliver,  story-teller  by  profession." 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    CHILDREN'S    HOUR  :     REPORTED    IN   A 
LETTER   BY    AN    EYE-WITNESS. 

It  was  the  last  Monday  in  March,  and 
I  had  come  in  from  my  country  home  to 
see  if  I  could  find  my  old  school  friend, 
Margaret  Crosby,  who  is  now  Mrs.  Donald 
Bird,  and  who  is  spending  a  few  years  in 
California. 

The  directory  gave  me  her  address,  and 
I  soon  found  myself  on  the  corner  of  two 
beautiful  streets  and  before  a  very  large 
and  elegant  house.  This  did  not  surprise 
me,  as  I  knew  her  husband  to  be  a  very 
wealthy  man.  There  seemed  to  be  various 
entrances,  for  the  house  stood  with  its  side 
to  the  main  street ;  but  when  I  had  at  last 
selected  a  bell  to  ring,  I  became  convinced 
that  I  had  not,  after  all,  gone  to  the  front 
door.  It  was  too  late  to  retreat,  however, 
and  very  soon  the  door  was  opened  by  a 
pretty  maid -servant  in  a  white  cap  and 
apron. 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  201 

"  You  need  n't  have  rung,  'm  ;  they  goes 
right  in  without  ringing  to-day,"  she  said 
pleasantly. 

"  Can  I  see  Mrs.  Bird?  "  I  asked. 

"  Well,  'm,"  she  said  hesitatingly,  "  she  's 
in  Paradise." 

"  Lovely  Margaret  Crosby  dead  !  How 
sudden  it  must  have  been,"  I  thought,  grow- 
ing pale  with  the  shock  of  the  surprise ; 
but  the  pretty  maid,  noticing  that  some- 
thing had  ruffled  my  equanimity,  went  on 
hastily  :  — 

"  Excuse  me,  'm.  I  forgot  you  might 
be  a  stranger,  but  the  nurses  and  mothers 
always  comes  to  this  door,  and  we  're  all  a 
bit  flustered  on  account  of  its  bein'  Miss 
Pauline's  last  '  afternoon,'  and  the  mothers 
call  the  music  -  room  '  Paradise,'  'm,  and 
Mr.  John  and  the  rest  of  us  have  took  it  up 
without  thinkin'  very  much  how  it  might 
sound  to  strangers." 

"  Oh,  I  see,"  I  said  mechanically,  though 
I  did  n't  see  in  the  least ;  but  although  the 
complicated  explanation  threw  very  little 
light  on  general  topics,  it  did  have  the  sav- 
ing grace  of  assuring  me  that  Margaret  Bird 
was  living. 

"  Could  you  call  her  out  for  a  few  min- 


202  POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

utes  ?  "  I  asked.  "  I  am  an  old  friend,  and 
shall  be  disappointed  not  to  see  her." 

"  I  'm  sorry,  'm,  but  I  could  n't  possibly 
call  her  out ;  it  would  be  as  much  as  my 
place  is  worth.  Her  strict  orders  is  that 
nobody  once  inside  of  Paradise  door  shall 
be  called  out." 

"  That  does  seem  reasonable,"  I  thought 
to  myself. 

"  But,"  she  continued,  "  Mrs.  Bird  told  me 
to  let  young  Mr.  Noble  up  the  stairs  so 't 
he  could  peek  in  the  door,  and  as  you're 
an  old  friend  I  hev  n't  no  objections  to 
your  goin'  up  softly  and  peekin'  in  with 
him  till  Miss  Pauline  's  through,  —  it  won't 
be  long,  'm." 

My  curiosity  was  aroused  by  this  time, 
and  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  "  peekin' 
in  the  door  "  of  Paradise  with  "  young  Mr. 
Noble  "  would  be  better  than  nothing ;  so  up 
I  went,  like  a  thief  in  the  night. 

The  room  was  at  the  head  of  the  stairs, 
and  one  of  the  doors  was  open,  and  had  a 
heavy  portiere  hanging  across  it.  Behind 
this  was  young  Mr.  Noble,  "  peekin'  "  most 
greedily,  together  with  a  middle-aged  gentle- 
man not  described  by  the  voluble  parlor  maid. 
They  did  n't  seem  to  notice  me  ;  they  were 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  203 

otherwise  occupied,  or  perhaps  they  thought 
me  one  of  the  nurses  or  mothers.  I  had  heard 
the  sound  of  a  piano  as  I  crossed  the  hall, 
but  it  was  still  now.  I  crept  behind  young 
Mr.  Noble,  and  took  a  good  "  peek  "  into 
Paradise. 

It  was  a  very  large  apartment,  one  that 
looked  as  if  it  might  have  been  built  for  a 
ball-room ;  at  least,  there  was  a  wide,  cush- 
ioned bench  running  around  three  sides  of  it, 
close  to  the  wall.  On  one  side,  behind  some 
black  and  gold  Japanese  screens,  where  they 
could  hear  and  not  be  seen,  sat  a  row  of 
silent,  capped  and  aproned  nurse-maids  and 
bonneted  mammas.  Mrs.  Bird  was  among 
them,  lovely  and  serene  as  an  angel  still, 
though  she  has  had  her  troubles.  There 
was  a  great  fireplace  in  the  room,  but  it  was 
banked  up  with  purple  and  white  lilacs. 
There  was  a  bowl  of  the  same  flowers  on  the 
grand  piano,  and  a  clump  of  bushes  sketched 
in  chalk  on  a  blackboard.  Just  then  a  lovely 
young  girl  walked  from  the  piano  and  took 
a  low  chair  in  front  of  the  fireplace. 

Before  her  there  were  grouped  ever  so 
many  children,  twenty-five  or  thirty,  perhaps. 
The  tots  in  the  front  rows  were  cosy  and  com- 
fortable on  piles  of  cushions,  and  the  seven 


204  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

or  eight  year  olds  in  the  back  row  were  in 
seats  a  little  higher.  Each  child  had  a  sprig 
of  lilac  in  its  hand.  The  young  girl  wore  a 
soft  white  dress  with  lavender  flowers  scat- 
tered all  over  it,  and  a  great  bunch  of  the 
flowers  in  her  belt. 

She  was  a  lovely  creature !  At  least,  I 
believe  she  was.  I  have  an  indistinct  remem- 
brance that  her  enemies  (if  she  has  any) 
might  call  her  hair  red  ;  but  I  could  n't  stop 
looking  at  her  long  enough  at  the  time  to 
decide  precisely  what  color  it  was.  And  I 
believe,  now  that  several  days  have  passed, 
that  her  nose  turned  up ;  but  at  the  moment, 
whenever  I  tried  to  see  just  how  much  it 
wandered  from  the  Grecian  outline,  her  eyes 
dazzled  me  and  I  never  found  out. 

As  she  seated  herself  in  their  midst,  the 
children  turned  their  faces  expectantly  to- 
ward her,  like  flowers  toward  the  sim. 

"  You  know  it  's  the  last  Monday,  dears," 
she  said;  "and  we  've  had  our  good-by 
story." 

"  Tell  it  again !  Sing  it  again  !  "  came 
from  two  kilted  adorers  in  the  back  row. 

"  Not  to-day ; "  and  she  shook  her  head 
with  a  smile.  "  You  know  we  always  stop 
within  the  hour,  and  that  is  the  reason  we 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  205 

are  always  eager  to  come  again ;  but  this 
sprig  of  lilac  that  you  all  hold  in  your  hands 
has  something  to  tell ;  not  a  long  story,  just 
a  piece  of  one  for  another  good-by.  I  think 
when  we  go  home,  if  we  all  press  the  flowers 
in  heavy  books,  and  open  the  books  some- 
times while  we  are  away  from  each  other  this 
summer,  that  the  sweet  fragrance  will  come 
to  us  again,  and  the  faded  blossom  will  tell 
its  own  story  to  each  one  of  us.  And  this 
is  the  story,"  she  said,  as  she  turned  her 
spray  of  lilac  in  her  fingers. 


There  was  once  a  little  lilac-bush  that 
grew  by  a  child's  window.  There  was  no 
garden  there,  only  a  tiny  bit  of  ground  with 
a  few  green  things  in  it ;  and  because  there 
were  no  trees  in  the  crowded  streets,  the 
birds  perched  on  the  lilac-bush  to  sing,  and 
two  of  them  even  built  a  nest  in  it  once,  for 
want  of  something  larger. 

It  had  been  a  very  busy  lilac-bush  all 
its  life :  drinking  up  moisture  from  the  earth 
and  making  it  into  sap  ;  adding  each  year  a 
tiny  bit  of  wood  to  its  slender  trunk  ;  filling 
out  its  leaf -buds ;  making  its  leaves  larger 
and  larger  ;    and  then  —  oh,  happy,  happy 


206  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

time  !  —  hanging  purple  flowers  here  and 
there  among  its  branches. 

It  always  felt  glad  of  its  hard  work  when 
Hester  came  to  gather  some  of  its  flowers 
just  before  Easter  Sunday.  For  one  spray 
went  to  the  table  where  Hester  and  her  mo- 
ther ate  together ;  one  to  Hester's  teacher ; 
one  to  the  gray  stone  church  around  the  cor- 
ner, and  one  to  a  little  lame  girl  who  sat, 
and  sat,  quite  still,  day  after  day,  by  the 
window  of  the  next  house. 

But  one  year  —  this  very  last  year,  chil- 
dren—  the  lilac-bush  grew  tired  of  being 
good  and  working  hard ;  and  the  more  it 
thought  about  it,  the  sadder  and  sorrier  and 
more  discouraged  it  grew.  The  winter  had 
been  dark  and  rainy ;  the  ground  was  so  wet 
that  its  roots  felt  slippery  and  uncomfortable ; 
there  was  some  disagreeable  moss  growing  on 
its  smooth  branches  ;  the  sun  almost  never 
shone ;  the  birds  came  but  seldom ;  and  at 
last  the  lilac-bush  said,  "  I  will  give  up ;  I  am 
not  going  to  bud  or  bloom  or  do  a  single  thing 
for  Easter  this  year !  I  don't  care  if  my 
trunk  does  n't  grow,  nor  my  buds  swell,  nor 
my  leaves  grow  larger  !  If  Hester  wants 
her  room  shaded,  she  can  pull  the  curtain 
down  ;  and  the  lame  girl  can  "  —  do  without , 


# 


TELLING  THE  LILAC-BUSH  STORY 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  207 

it  was  going  to  say,  but  it  did  n't  dare  —  oh, 
it  did  n't  dare  to  think  of  the  poor  little  lame 
girl  without  any  comforting  flowers;  so  it 
stopped  short  and  hung  its  head. 

Six  or  eight  weeks  ago  Hester  and  her 
mother  went  out  one  morning  to  see  the 
lilac-bush. 

"  It  does  n't  look  at  all  as  it  ought,"  said 
Hester,  shaking  her  head  sadly.  "  The  buds 
are  very  few,  and  they  are  all  shrunken. 
See  how  limp  and  flabby  the  stems  of  the 
leaves  look !  " 

"  Perhaps  it  is  dead,"  said  Hester's  mo- 
ther, "  or  perhaps  it  is  too  old  to  bloom." 

"  I  like  that !  "  thought  the  lilac-bush. 
"I'm  not  dead  and  I  'm  not  dying,  though 
I  'd  just  as  lief  die  as  to  keep  on  working  in 
this  dark,  damp,  unpleasant  winter,  or  spring, 
or  whatever  they  call  it ;  and  as  for  being 
past  blooming,  I  would  just  like  to  show 
her,  if  it  was  n't  so  much  trouble  !  How 
old  does  she  think  I  am,  I  wonder?  There 
is  n't  a  thing  in  this  part  of  the  city  that  is 
over  ten  years  old,  and  I  was  n't  planted 
first,  by  any  means  !  " 

And  then  Hester  said,  "  My  darling,  dar- 
ling lilac-bush !  Easter  won't  be  Easter 
without  it;  and  lame  Jenny  leans  out  of  her 


208  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

window  every  day  as  I  come  from  school, 
and  asks,  '  Is  the  lilac  budding  ? ' ' 

"  Oh  dear  !  "  sighed  the  little  bush.  "  I 
wish  she  would  n't  talk  that  way  ;  it  makes 
me  so  nervous  to  have  Jenny  asking  ques- 
tions about  me  !  It  starts  my  sap  circulat- 
ing, and  I  shall  grow  in  spite  of  me !  " 

"  Let  us  see  what  we  can  do  to  help  it," 
said  Hester's  mother.  "Take  your  trowel 
and  dig  round  the  roots  first." 

"  They  '11  find  a  moist  and  sticky  place 
and  be  better  able  to  sympathize  with  me," 
thought  the  lilac. 

"  Then  put  in  some  new  earth,  the  rich- 
est you  can  get,  and  we  '11  snip  off  all  the 
withered  leaves  and  dry  twigs,  and  see  if  it 
won't  take  a  new  start." 

"  I  shall  have  to,  I  believe,  whether  I 
like  it  or  not,  if  they  make  such  a  fuss  about 
me !  "  thought  the  lilac-bush.  "  It  seems  a 
pity  if  a  thing  can't  stop  growing  and  be  let 
alone  and  die  if  it  wants  to  !  " 

But  though  it  grumbled  a  trifle  at  first, 
it  felt  so  much  better  after  Hester  and  her 
mother  had  spent  the  afternoon  caring  for  it, 
that  it  began  to  grow  a  little  just  out  of 
gratitude,  —  and  what  do  you  think  hap- 
pened ? 


POLLY   OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  209 

"  George  Washington  came  and  chopped 
it  down  with  his  little  hatchet,"  said  an  eager 
person  in  front. 

"  The  lame  girl  came  to  look  at  it,"  sang 
out  a  small  chaj)  in  the  back  row. 

No,  (the  young  girl  answered,  with  an  ir- 
repressible smile),  it  was  a  cherry-tree  that 
George  Washington  chopped,  Lucy ;  and  I 
told  you,  Horatio,  that  the  poor  lame  girl 
could  n't  walk  a  step.  But  the  sun  began 
to  shine,  —  that  is  the  first  thing  that  hap- 
pened. Day  after  day  the  sun  shone,  because 
everything  seems  to  help  the  people  and  the 
things  that  help  themselves.  The  rich  earth 
gave  everything  it  had  to  give  for  sap,  and 
the  warm  air  dried  up  the  ugly  moss  that 
spoiled  the  beauty  of  its  trunk. 

Then  the  lilac-bush  was  glad  again,  and 
it  could  hardly  grow  fast  enough,  because  it 
knew  it  would  be  behind  time,  at  any  rate  ; 
for  of  course  it  could  n't  stand  still,  grum- 
bling and  doing  nothing  for  weeks,  and  get  its 
work  done  as  soon  as  the  other  plants.  But 
it  made  sap  all  day  long,  and  the  buds  grew 
into  tiny  leaves,  and  the  leaves  into  larger 
ones,  and  then  it  began  to  group  its  flower- 
buds  among  the  branches.     By  this  time  it 


210  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

was  the  week  before  Easter,  and  it  fairly  sat 
up  nights  to  work. 

Hester  knew  that  it  was  going  to  be  more 
beautiful  than  it  ever  was  in  its  life  before 
(that  was  because  it  had  never  tried  so  hard, 
though  of  course  Hester  could  n't  know  that), 
but  she  was  only  afraid  that  it  would  n't 
bloom  soon  enough,  it  was  so  very  late 
this  spring. 

But  the  very  morning  before  Easter  Sun- 
day, Hester  turned  in  her  sleep  and  dreamed 
that  a  sweet,  sweet  fragrance  was  stealing  in 
at  her  open  window.  A  few  minutes  later 
she  ran  across  her  room,  and  lo !  every  clus- 
ter of  buds  on  the  lilac-bush  had  opened  into 
purple  flowers,  and  they  were  waving  in  the 
morning  sunshine  as  if  to  say,  "  We  are 
ready,  Hester !     We  are  ready,  after  all !  " 

And  one  spray  was  pinned  in  the  teach- 
er's dress,  —  it  was  shabby  and  black,  — 
and  she  was  glad  of  the  flower  because  it 
reminded  her  of  home. 

And  one  spray  stood  in  a  vase  on  Hes- 
ter's dining  -  table.  There  was  never  very 
much  dinner  in  Hester's  house,  but  they  did 
not  care  that  day,  because  the  lilac  was  so 
beautiful. 

One  bunch  lay  on  the  table  in  the  church, 


POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM.  211 

and  one,  the  loveliest  of  all,  stood  in  a  cup  of 
water  on  the  lame  girl's  window-sill;  and 
when  she  went  to  bed  that  night  she  moved 
it  to  the  table  beside  her  head,  and  put  her 
thin  hand  out  to  touch  it  in  the  dark,  and 
went  to  sleep  smiling. 

And  each  of  the  lilac  flowers  was    glad 
that  the  bush  had  bloomed. 


The  children  drew  a  deep  breath.  They 
smoothed  their  flower-sprays  gently,  and  one 
pale  boy  held  his  up  to  his  cheek  as  if  it  had 
been  a  living  thing. 

"  Tell  it  again,"  cried  the  tomboy. 

"  Is  it  true  ?  "  asked  the  boy  in  kilts. 

"  I  think  it  is,"  said  the  girl  gently. 
"  Of  course,  Tommy,  the  flowers  never  tell  us 
their  secrets  in  words  ;  but  I  have  watched 
that  lilac-bush  all  through  the  winter  and 
spring,  and  these  are  the  very  blossoms  you 
are  holding  to-day.  It  seems  true,  does  n't 
it?" 

"  Yes,"  they  said  thoughtfully. 

"  Shall  you  press  yours,  Miss  Polly,  and 
will  it  tell  you  a  story,  too,  when  you  look 
at  it?"  asked  one  little  tot  as  they  all 
crowded  about  her  for  a  good-by  kiss. 


212  POLLY  OLIVER'S  PROBLEM. 

Miss  Polly  caught  her  up  in  her  arms,  and 
I  saw  her  take  the  child's  apron  and  wipe 
away  a  tear  as  she  said,  "  Yes,  dear,  it  will 
tell  me  a  story,  too,  —  a  long,  sad,  sweet, 
helpful  story!  " 


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